Chimpomatic

Red Riding

(dir. Julian Jarrold)

Channel 4

Got a feeling this is going to be one of the TV highlights of the year. Taken from David Peace's quartet of cult novels, C4's trio of feature-length dramas covers life in Yorkshire during 1974, 1980 and 1983. It's a world infused with the dark spectre of the Yorkshire Ripper, a dark time in the UK's history when police corruption, a pervasive brutality and institutional misogyny all contributed to a background of paranoia while a serial killer ran loose.

It's an atmospheric, sophisticated work, beautifully shot, impeccably acted. Stories start in one, finish in another; loose ends abound, just like in real life. 

Andrew Garfield's a cocky young journo trying to convince his editor he's found a serial killer in the first film, 1974 - and then finding himself drawn into property magnate Sean Bean's dark world. The reliably great Paddy Considine plays a Manchester cop called in to investigate the Yorkshire force's casework in the second, 1980. David Morrissey returns in the third, 1984, to try and unravel the case. The excellent cast is filled out by Warren Clarke, Rebecca Hall, Gerard Kearns, Eddie Marsan, Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan - all working at the height of their game, with gruff take-no-prisoners dialogue like "this is Yorkshire - we do what we want around here" peppered through the terse script.

Peace also wrote The Damned United, which is getting a cinematic release as well Mar 27 - think he's going to be doing v well in 2009's end of year lists...

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21st Feb 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Devil's Whore

(creator: Peter Flannery)

Channel 4

Four-part drama set during the English civil war, with Andrea Riseborough playing Angelica Fanshawe, a proto-feminist courtier who finds herself at the heart of Cromwell's revolution. 

Channel 4's historical dramas sometimes suffer from budget problems which make it look like there just weren't that many people around in ye great hiftorical momentes of olde Englande. Here, they just about get away with it, thanks largely to a great cast cast: as well as the mighty Dominic "McNulty" West as Oliver Cromwell, they've also got one of TV's all-time best swearers, Peter "come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off" Capaldi (although he's a lot meeker as King Charles than he was in The Thick Of It), John Simm (ever-reliable, and engaging here as a freestyling blade-for-hire), and Michael Fassbender, (Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's Hunger).

Weirdly it was shot in South Africa - it's a lot cheaper to make it look like 17th century England than 21st century England now is apparently. Fanshawe's journey from naive noblewoman to roving highwaylady is highly entertaining, though it's hard to know how fast and loose they've played with the history (the English Civil War wasn't on the curriculum at Chimpschool) - was Cromwell such a fun guy? Or is that just the McNulty charm seeping through Dominic West's grin? Would she really have been allowed to chat back to the King in the way that she does? 

Historical questions aside, it's an engaging romp, with a good mix of swashbuckling, drama and moustache-twirling that looks like it'll be worth following for all four episodes.

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13th Nov 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

City Of Vice

Pilot

Channel 4

Ian "The Emperor" McDiarmid and Iain Glen star in this new cop drama following the real-life efforts of magistrate brothers Henry and John Fielding to start a police force in 1753 London.

Henry was of course the author of Tom Jones, and so was pretty well known in the 18th Century by the time he set up the Bow Street Runners to try and stamp out the rampant vice in the city at the time. In the first episode, they're nipping all over London, as they investigate the brutal murder of a prostitute in the first episode, boozing it up on the job as much as McNulty (although it's wine rather than beer for these cops).

Does suffer a bit from a lack of budget for extras and extensive sets, but they get round it with some jumpy NYPD Blue camerawork and also the nifty use of map graphics to show the fledgling unit working the case across London. For once, you get to see the cops who actually did write the book on police procedure, although it wasn't quite up to CSI level at the time. Makes a change to see a costume drama that's about guvnors on manors rather than governors and manners for once.

Starts Monday 14 Jan, 9pm, Channel 4. 5 episodes.

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2nd Jan 2008 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Cape Wrath

Pilot

Channel 4

Promising opener for this new 7-part C4 drama. David Morrissey stars as the father of a family who move to a suburban gated community looking to make a new start. Soon transpires the gates aren't always open, and the plot thickens...

Stylishly done, it's a decent riff on witness protection schemes, that manages to steer just the right side of "dark/weird/ooh what's going on in this apparently normal cul de sac" plot without getting too wacky.

With Felicity Jones, Harry Treadaway, Lucy Cohu, Tom Hardy, Nina Sosanya, Melanie Hill and Don Gilet. Starts 10th July, C4, 10pm; already showing in the States as Meadowlands

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28th Jun 2007 - 6 comments - Add Comment - Tweet