The Sweeney: Night Out

 "Wait, where's my gun?"

"In the dishwasher?"

This is another subtle little character episode from the pen of none other than Troy Kennedy Martin. On the surface it's about Regan keeping an old flame, Iris, in her flat next to a pub while a Superindendent and his gang carry out an operation to grab the villains doing a job in the vault of the bank next to the pub next door. There's suspense. There's shootout. There's realistic fear from Regan.

And yet... this is really about the people. Jack's old flame is... nice, witty, likeable. You can see why Jack liked her. And, despite an awkward start, you can see their chemistry.As real people often do, they fall apart through circumstances but crisiscan bring back the old affections...and so Irisand Jack end up in bed together. Twice. With lots of rather glorious screwball comedy for good measure.

Yet it's also a fascinating character study of T.P. McKenna's Superintendent, a man who loves success, loves publicity and is admired by his men, seduced by the glamour... yet it's all about him, and he cares not how many get hurt, or killed, in the attempt. John Thaw plays contempt for this man to perfection. The suspense at the end is electric. At one point I thought Iris would be the one being shot.

Not the best episode so far, perhaps, but only because of the high quality of the others. And I love the casual response to the bar fight as "Well, I suppose it's Saturday night, innit?"

The Sweeney: Thin Ice

 "I merely strangled the hound with my bare hands..."

This is the best episode yet. Oh, the plot is clever and entertaining, and we're getting to know Regan, Carter and the rest of the Flying Squad, but more than anything else this is just bloody good writing.

This episode is basically ten dimensional chess between three parties. Bishop (Alfred Marks is a splendid presence) is a criminal  mastermind on the run to France, and there's a rivalry between Regan and one Superintendent Pringle (a perfectly cast Peter Jeffrey) on how to deal with him, and how. It's fun to see how things play out, with Regan ultimately outsmaring both his adversaries.

Yet it's more than that. It's dialogue that is witty but also very real. People talk at cross purposes, there's wordplay, there's perfectly played cynicism. These characters feel real, despite us not knowing them much, purely because of the deftness of the words and the performances. Little things, like the unfriendliness of the local constabularty or the dark hints of domestic abuse at the end.

Yes, this is certainly the quintessential showabout maverick '70s cops who cut corners to get results. But damn, it's clever.

The Sweeney: Jackpot

"There's got to be a perfectly logical explanation for all this..."

Another excellent episode to follow-up the pilot, perhaps no surprise as it's scripted by Troy Kennedy Martin. Realistic characters, naturalistic dialogue- a very hard thing to do- naturalistic action and naturalistic, shaky camerawork, surely an even harder thing to do with the size of TV cameras in 1974.

The plot- a bag with £35,000 goes missing after some villains are apprehended after a robbery, and it's suspected that Regan or one of his men may have nicked it- is conceptually simple. But the resolution is quite clever, and the conceit works quite well in drawing out the characters and relationships between Regan's men. I wonder if we'll get a proper ensemble feel, looking ahead. And the main villin, a man universally despised and looking at a fourteen year stretch, looks a truly tragic figure by the end. That's good writing.

Again one has to raise an eyebrow at the casual attitude to warrants and waiting for the suspect's solicitor before interviewing him.. but this is the Dark Ages, before 1984. Waterman is superb, and so is Thaw... and that's his natural Mancunian accent, isn't it?

I'm already enjoying this a lot. It's much more serious than it's popular reputation so far. Let's see if this continues.

Edge of Darkness: Part 5- Northmoor

“To know is to die..."

The above quote, from the ever-mercurial and ever-unknowable Jedburgh, one of the most fascinating characters in television history, seems to illustrate a point: knowledge brings us death, whether the radiation thereof is literal or metaphorical. Shades of the myth of Adam and Eve there. Yet we understand why Craven's need to know exceeds his need to live- but what of Jedburgh, who knows this may be a suicide mission? While both seem to survive- Jedburgh with the plutonium- their life expectancy is likely to be much shortened.

This episode marks an extraordinary change of focus- yes, there are the scenes of the parliamentary committee to remind us of a wider, and contested, context, but the whole episode is shaped around our two protagonists retracing the steps of Emma (who doesn't appear- she no longer needs to?) and GAIA, while being tracked by those with no qualms about killing them. It's very much shot to emphasise the constant danger, discomfort and horror. Even the bunker, with its vintage wine and luxuries, feels like a cruel joke.

Interestingly, our protagonists are both acting, intentionally or not, on behalf of spooks on both sides of the pond. But ultimately this penultimate episode reveals less of the plot than expected, even as it reveals what is physically at Northmoor. Meaning and context can wait- but will the final episode give us that? Extraordinary and unpredictable telly, playing to no one's rules.

Edge of Darkness: Part 4- Breakthrough

“Well, bodies kept turning up in the bunkers, and you needed air support to play out of the rough. Kinda puts you off your game."

My, this is getting very deep indeed in terms of plot, psychology and subtext. Nothing I say here will do much more than scratch the surface, but suffice to say that this is masterfully crafted stuff.

Craven is back at home, and almost killed by McCroon, the suspect, for banal reasons of revenge. Yet there's more to this, and not just in one way. Yes, there's the fact that someone gave McCroon the information and resources he needed, but there's also the dirty tricks that took place in Northern Ireland, and Craven's own hands are very much dipped in the blood; he personally recruited informers who were subsequently dropped and allowed to be offed by the Provos. This is, to say the least, no less dishonourable than the other political games going on.

There's the genuine question over Craven's mental state, as much is driven by the presence of Emma's ghost inside his head. Then there's the mercurial Jedburgh, whose entire outward personality is a performance. Who is he, underneath? He's not just eccentric- he seems extraordinarily sanguine about the apparent recent death in El Salvador (the series oozes with '80s current affairs), and his loyalties may not just be to his CIA employers. Are we convinced by the explanation he gives Craven for co-founding GAIA?

Eventually, in a very exciting sequence, Craven gets to hack a very 1980s IT network and get a little more information- not least a map of Northmoor. He also gets Godbold to spread the beans- and, while hopelessly in hock to the nuclear industry, he was in fact Emma's man on the inside- and lets slip that the killers almost certainly suspected Craven of fulfilling that role. This is already a complex web, and a compelling one. Plus, it seems, Craven and Jedburgh are going to retrace Emma's terrorist steps.

Excellent stuff. I raised an eyebrow, however, when Craven was told that you "don't say no" to a Commons select committee or "they lock you up". Someone should tell that to Dominic Cummings.

Edge of Darkness: Part 3- Burden of Proof

"I don't believe in the conspiracy theory of history."

This episode may perhaps be, again, less obviously artistic than the first and even more so than the second and, by now, deeply engrossed and, indeed, engrossing in the unravelling of the complex yet clearly narrated plot, but that is achieved without sacrificing either characterisation or verbal wit. This is still extraordinary, even sublime television, three episodes in.

Bob Peck is again, well, deservedly BAFTA-winning in how he portrays deep emotion and bereavement in a restrained man. Craven may be seen, by the end, by his boss as in need of help over his seeming obsession with deeper conspiracies behind Emma's death, but he is simultaneously seen by Harcourt and Pendleton, those nebulous spooks, as a credible witness for their plans to somehow nobble Bob Bennett, whom they suspect of killing Emma. Craven refuses them, of course, being the decent father that he is, but this goes to illusrate that things are not as they seem. The Texan act of the ever-thinking Jedburgh is, as H and P point out, an act. He's a fascinating, deep and nuanced character, hiding beneath both a stereotype and a supposed political standpoint, yet according to Clemmie he co-founded GAIA, an environmental organisation he now loudly derides as terrorists? With him, there are layers to unpeel.

It's odd, and disturbing, to learn of Craven's intimate, touchy-feely interrogation techniques with Lowe, but then it's established that he's a sex offender. Godbolt again pops up, looking anxious to deny things And Terry, Emma's erstwhile boyfriend, is murdered in the bath after giving Craven a clue. The plot thickens, as always. And there are far too many nuances to recount the plot. Suffice to say, I'm gripped.

If this all reads as the work of a drunk person, well, I'm forty-three today, and I've just finished a bottle of rather good Chilean Cabernet. Burp. Stay at home. Beat coronavirus with good wine. That is all.

Edge of Darkness: Part 2- Into the Shadows

“It’s an anal disease. Marx has trouble with his bowels...”

A less poetic episode this time, perhaps. The camera lingers less and we have a greater focus on the unfolding mystery. There's a lot of plot, although masterful scripting means both that it's easy to follow and the exposition follows naturally from character.

So the subtle recap  at the start comes from the faces of the appalled investigating officers as they hear a tape recording of Ronald Craven's testimony- and I shall start calling him Craven rather than Ronnie; it fits his world. And the world of the spooks- not just Pendleton but Harcourt, his eccentric "other half", played by a young Ian McNeice- is one of exposition, certainly, but also of contrast- southern as opposed to northern, wit and eccentricity as opposed to Craven's sober stillness.

Then there's Emma's shifty boyfriend Terry, played an extraordinarily young Tim McInnerny of the same age as when he first played Percy in Black Adder II. He's a man of apparently strong political views but of dodgy loyalties- a police informer and sleeping with another girl before Emma is even buried. He is, I think, very much a type you'll see in the various organisations of the hard left, some of them rather rapey and all of them full of big fish playing their little games in small pools. Craven doesn't like him and, as we see everything through his eyes (including his daughter in his mind's eye, which continues to humanise him), neither do we.

But by this point we know that Emma led a raid on a nuclear facility at Northmoor. And we, and Craven, learn much more when we meet the fascinating figure of Jedburgh, who hides considerable depths beneath that Stetson hat and brash, Republican, Commie-bashing exterior. He and Craven bond unexpectedly over Willie Nelson, and we discover more juicy little details.

This is clever, controlled, deeply human and a fascinating glimpse into the psyche of 1985. I'm utterly addicted.

Edge of Darkness: Part 1- Compassionate Leave

“Stop playing by the rules, Ronald."

I'm going in cold; unlike several old classic BBC dramas I haven't seen this before. And first impressions are that, gosh, this is good. Moody, griping, atmospheric, well directed and all of that from the very start. Even the music is effective and evocative with Eric Clapton's guitar singing with emotion- and I say this as someone who can appreciate Clapton's talent (even Hendrix really rated him), but really isn't a fan of the sort of slickly produced, show-offy guitar wanking that he'd become known for by this point, a kind of Mark Knopfler with a more impressive past.

And mood is central here. Oh, there's compelling mystery and conspiracy here aplenty- Ronnie, a Yorkshire police inspector, is investigating a somewhat menacing and dodgy Trade Union official (or Labour MP; it isn't clear) who is, I suspect a red herring. His daughter is a charismatic political activist who is suddenly shot dead by a gunman who may have been aiming for him. So he heads down to London on leave to investigate her death, only to be told by a spook that she was some sort of "terrorist". That is, I suppose, more or less the plot.

But this episode isn't really about any of that at all. It's about Ronnie's immense pain of bereavement- he lost his wife to cancer and has now lost his daughter- channeled through a very masculine, very English and, indeed, very Yorkshire stiff upper lip concealing swirling depth of emotional ferment, conveyed with extraordinary stillness by Bob Peck. It's also about the close and emotional relationship between a father and the daughter he never fully knew- something which has a powerful force for any father of a daughter. Her ghost speaks to him in his head throughout, showing us what a strong bond they had after his wife's death- and crucially humanising this undemonstrative man.

It's in searching Emma's bedroom that Ronnie finds a folder full of artifacts relating to something she seems to have been investigating- a map, a gun, a Geiger counter- but the scene is about more than plot. It's about Ronnie putting Willie Nelson's "Time of the Preacher" on the record player and the song mirrors his action, moods and desires- ending with it quite clear that he's on a mission of revenge.

One brief scene hints at some men, one of them a Stetson-sporting American, who seem to have been in on whatever Emma was up to, but we follow Ronnie down to the alien, unsettling world of London and the south of England, where things become even more murky.

There are glimpses of political issues throughout- early environmentalism; nuclear weapons; the corruption of the old Trade Union establishment- but it's striking how soft left Labour MP and future Environment minister, the late Michael Meacher, gets to do the large part of what looks like a stump speech.

I don't know where this is going yet. But I know how it feels, and so far it's wonderful.

The Italian Job (1969)

"Tell Bridger this is a foreign job to help with this country's balance of payments..."

I'm beginning to be wary of going into a film with high expectations; it doesn't exactly enhance the experience. Take The Italian Job, a 1960s British classic, beloved of all the lads, but a film which I had somehow contrived, until last night, never to have properly seen all the way through- and I'm forty. I must have been blown away, right?

Only I wasn't, not really, Oh, it's good; the script by Troy Kennedy Martin, all those famous lines and iconic set pieces, national treasure Michael Caine's legendary performance, Noel Coward and, indeed the whole character of Bridger- an upper class Harry Grout who lords it over John Le Mesurier's prison governor; all these things are a joy to watch. Yet the film also seems to drag in places, and generally doesn't turn out to be as good as I was expecting. I wonder if I'd still feel that way, though, if not for those high expectations? I must confess that, Benny Hill's silly mugging aside, there's not much that's actually wrong with this film. Perhaps I just don't like heist movies all that much?

All the same, it's brilliantly shot on location in Turin, and the ambiguous ending is pure genius. If only the whole film was as good as its most famous scenes, but I really don't mean to imply that The Italian Job is any less than very, very good.