TV Review: SCOTT & BAILEY + BBC: THE SECRET FILES

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 16th April 2016.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Scott & Bailey: Wednesday, STV

BBC: The Secret Files: Thursday, BBC Four

  

Thanks to the magnificent Happy Valley, writer/director Sally Wainwright is now rightfully recognised as one of Britain’s finest TV dramatists. As if to emphasise that point – and she’s earned the right – she returned last week with another series of her previous creation, Scott & Bailey, starring Lesley Sharp and Suranne as a pair of humane coppers.

Granted, she didn’t actually write this new mini-series – that honour went to Lee Warburton – but Scott & Bailey is distinctively hers; a female-fronted, northern cop show mired in plausible reality and unforced character detail.

From a distance it resembles a bog-standard police procedural – plods investigating nasty cases in dour weather – but on closer inspection it reveals itself as one of the genre’s leading lights.

Unlike most TV cops, the protagonists aren’t dysfunctional or quirky. They’re likeable, compassionate professionals with a dry sense of humour (some of Scott’s quips draw scripted attention to themselves, but I’ll magnanimously let that pass) and a warm, understated chemistry.

It also focuses on the interesting nuts and bolts of dogged police work, an aspect informed by the advisory involvement of former Detective Inspector Diane Taylor.

Bubbling under the surface of this latest case, in which they struggled to apprehend a serial killer who posts footage of his crimes on the darkest corners of the internet, was the story of two close friends who haven’t seen each other for a year. As always, the everyday trials of their private lives were as important as the case itself. This time we discovered that Bailey is pregnant. Meanwhile, Scott’s teenage daughter became embroiled in an underage sex investigation because of illicit selfies sent by her boyfriend.

It managed to explore these real-life issues without feeling too contrived or overcooked, so it’s a shame that the otherwise semi-naturalistic tone is completely at odds with an overbearing, needlessly dramatic incidental score. It’s not a documentary, it needs to meet the demands of an episodic hour of dynamic crime drama, but there’s no need to slather it in the soundtrack from a Yakuza-based B-movie.

That frustrating misgiving aside, this was a solid return from one of TV’s very best cop shows. Also, hats off to Warbuton for including jokey allusions to the original Pink Panther films and Hanna-Barbera’s animated Godzilla series from the 1970s. Yes, really.

Seeing as it must cost peanuts to produce, it’s hardly surprising that BBC Four opted to roll out a sequel to last year’s eye-opening traipse through the BBC’s vast archive of internal letters and memos between agents, executives and artists.

Once again presented by Penelope Keith, who I like to imagine living down there surrounded by cabinets and memorabilia, BBC: The Secret Files included some fascinating correspondence between the BBC’s notoriously dour founding father, Lord Reith, and his rival, Winston Churchill, plus an amused look at how the fusty old BBC dealt with the rise of rock and roll. This segment was worth it for the unique pleasure of hearing Keith say “1960s counterculture” in her cut-glass tones.

It also revealed that Morecambe & Wise’s producer initially felt that Eric would be better off without Ern, and that the redoubtable Barbara Wodehouse basically talked her way into a BBC contract following years of no-nonsense correspondence.

But my favourite moment was the revelation that a jazz song titled Where Is My Sunday Potato was once deemed “politically unsuitable” and banned. One can only wonder about its incendiary contents. 

TV Review: RIVER and THE RETURNED

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 17 October 2015.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

River: Tuesday, BBC One

The Returned: Friday, More4

Paul Whitelaw

Just when you thought the hoary old cliché of the troubled detective with an extensive vinyl collection had been pummelled beyond repair, along comes River to show that there's life in the old dog yet.

The effectiveness of this new cop drama from Abi Morgan (The Hour) is enormously surprising, as from the moment I first heard about it I assumed the worst. After all, the very concept of a maverick cop named John River sounds ridiculous. 

It reminded me instinctively of Simon Day as John Actor in The Fast Show's Monkfish sketches (“John Actor is a tough, uncompromising inspector/doctor/vet...”).

However, putting aside the vast unlikelihood of the great Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard playing a character named John River, this is undoubtedly the most confident attempt yet at transplanting the existential angst of Nordic noir to British climes. Face facts, From Darkness.

The opening ten minutes alone offered some of the most arresting drama I've seen on TV all year. Scored to Tina Charles' disco classic I Love To Love, the sequence immediately established a warm, understated chemistry between the endearingly discomfited River and his more exuberant partner DS Stevenson (the always believable Nicola Walker, who also shines at the moment in ITV's above-par crime drama Unforgotten).

Their affectionate banter was punctured suddenly when River spotted a petty drug dealer. Chasing him on foot, our wheezy, ageing hero unwittingly drove the suspect to his death. The scene that followed seemed standard at first: River's weary chief (the wonderful Lesley Manville of Mike Leigh renown) arrived to chastise him for causing the young man's demise.

As Stevenson offered him support, the camera span around slowly to reveal a gaping wound on the back of her head. She'd been killed in action, and now exists only in grieving River's mind. It's a measure of how well this twist was handled that its invocation of another great comedy sketch – Chuffy, the imaginary sidekick from Armstrong & Miller – didn't make me laugh. It was so unforeseen, I admired its audacity.

It transpired that River is haunted by other ghosts, namely a murdered teenage girl whom he'd failed to rescue, and – there's no way of describing this without it sounding ridiculous – a 19^th century serial killer (Eddie Marsan, another gifted Leigh veteran). They're voices in his head, a manifestation of his troubled psyche. Ghosts who assist him in solving problems. 

If his noggin wasn't already crowded enough, the episode ended with a bedtime visit from the innocent man he "murdered" at the top of the episode. It's quite a party in there.

Judged incorrectly, this swirling cavalcade of psychological eccentricity could easily descend into farce. But so far at least, River gets the tone just right. It's rather subversive and unusual in an intelligent, dry-witted way. Skarsgard inhabits the role of River with sad-eyed charm and intensity. For once, the old cop-with-a-difference cliché seems justified.

Bathed in shades of medicinal green and nocturnal red, it's also directed with a sharp eye for striking composition. Delightfully, this highly promising show confounded all my expectations.

One of my favourite dramas of recent years, The Returned made good on its title last week for a second series of French supernatural mystery. Despite its ambiguous finale, I actually felt quite satisfied with series one as a self-contained piece. Is another series necessary?

Steeped in glacial intrigue, the opening episode suggested that there's more to be gleaned from this everyday saga of a remote French town populated by photogenic zombies.

Granted, thanks to a two year transmission gap between series, it took me about half an hour to fully remember who the hell everyone was. But once the fog had cleared, I was cautiously hooked all over again.

God only knows if it'll ever make complete sense, but that's not really the point. It's a disquietingly atmospheric mood piece, an exercise in odd, beautiful Twin Peaks-esque style. I'm glad it's back, to linger in the memory like one of River's manifests.