This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th October 2017.
GUNPOWDER: Saturday, BBC One
THE END OF THE
F***KING WORLD: Tuesday,
Channel 4
It’s
a scene we’ve witnessed a thousand times before.
A
group of villains descend upon a house and demand entry. Before they can get in
– they have to bark threats through a locked front door first – the inhabitants
shoo their illegal refugees into various secret hiding places.
The
villains search the house but find nothing. However, just as they’re about to
leave, the leader of the gang notices that something isn’t quite right. He taps
some walls to reveal a suspiciously hollow sound.
Cut
to the terrified faces of the refugees hiding within. One of them makes a
conspicuous sound, thus confirming the bad guy’s suspicions. Curses! Our heroes
have been exposed!
That
GUNPOWDER, a new retelling of the
Guy Fawkes saga, began with a 15-minute staging of this hackneyed scenario
didn’t bode well. This unintentionally Python-esque drama is a compendium of
clichés.
Classic
groaners under review included: the condemned prisoner eloquently refusing to
renounce their supposed sins; dastardly noblemen skulking deferentially around
a boorish monarch; a wise mentor (bonus points here for casting Peter Mullan)
warning his hot-headed young charge that violent revenge is inadvisable; and Mark
Gatiss turning up, as he must do by law in productions of this kind, as a
serpentine hunchbacked villain.
Gatiss
does deserve his position as the go-to guy for these roles, he never
disappoints. I couldn’t fault the cast at all, in fact. Game of Thrones star Kit Harington, who also co-produces, broods
sufficiently as the Gunpowder Plot leader, and Liv Tyler pulls off an
acceptable English accent. However, a cameo from the great comic actor Kevin Eldon
exacerbated the aura of straight-faced spoof.
The
suitably grey, grubby, reeking production design was quite impressive. It also
didn’t stint on the gruesome violence. There was, I must admit, something
perversely pleasing about the BBC scheduling a grim period drama full of
torture on a Saturday night after Strictly
Come Dancing.
But
the script by Ronan Bennett, while not outright bad exactly, was fatally mired
in genre tropes. Bennett is an acclaimed Irish playwright whose work for TV
includes the excellent Top Boy. This,
however, is not his finest hour. Perhaps he’s too close to the material.
During
The Troubles, he was convicted of murdering a policeman and plotting to cause
explosions. Both convictions were eventually overturned, but it’s not
unreasonable to view Gunpowder as his
way of explaining why an angry young man might commit acts of violence under an
oppressive regime.
Potentially
fascinating territory, clumsily traversed.
A
new black comedy about two dysfunctional teenagers, THE END OF THE F***KING WORLD wears its quirky darkness on its
sleeve. However, that’s what quirkily dark teenagers do, so the tone feels fitting.
It’s an intriguing show, funny, cruel, deadpan and sensitive. I admire its
uncompromising vision. It’s honest, it has soul. It’s awash with romantic ‘50s
pop.
James
isn’t just quirky, he’s an actual psychopath. A suburban English Dexter. Or is
he? Alyssa is an abrasive antisocial outcast suffering secret sorrow. She’s
drawn to his weirdness. He sees her as his first potential murder victim.
They’re a lost, vulnerable duo.
Despite
the extreme subject matter, it’s a morbidly engaging meditation on how it feels
to be a bright, difficult, alienated teenager from a boring town perpetually
bathed in flat early evening sunlight. The two young leads strike just the
right balance between sad, awkward innocence and blunt cynicism.
This
British Badlands is an unconventional
love story worthy of your time.
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