The Shadow Line (BBC 1)

Spoiler alert - This review reveals the outcome of the BBC series


The overall reaction to Hugo Blick's tale of cops and robbers is one of big disappointment.

The series promised much: a stellar cast, high production values and a seemingly good plot: the investigation of a murder that became a race between police and criminals to find the culprit.  However the plot soon morphed into an extremely convoluted and unbelievable mess, and the dialogue was leaden to  such an extent that the viewer was tempted to ditch it many times along the way. But for some reason resisted, thinking somehow the whole thing would repay the the effort. It did not. Some of the criminals seemed to mimic each another: Glisksman (Anthony Sher) and Gatehouse (Stephen Rea) spoke in an identical uber-sardonic tone - if you closed your eyes, you couldn't tell which was talking - in fact the tone was not far off that employed by young baddies Rafe Spall and Freddie Fox, or indeed the two stereotypical bent heads of police, for that matter.

This viewer wished he had baled out earlier - like at the beginning- when he watched the final episode with the lead, played heroically by Chiwetel Ejiofor looking decidedly baffled. It would be pointless to try and summarise in any more than a thumb print the ludicrously turgid plot here. There were no good guys: and the cops, or a clique within the cops did it after an unlikely sting operation went awry, and the cop gang used the surplus funds from privateering drug deals to top up the coppers' 'pension fund' - of all things.

The penultimate scene showing the Chief of Police in full uniformed regalia saluting the widow of the (almost) good cop in a post natal ward and his newly-born infant in a cot, has to be the most unwittingly funny scene ever shown (but it was preceded by many others). "We always look after our own". Yeah, right.

Let the Great World Spin

Delighted Let the Great World Spin won The Dublin IMPAC prize 2011. Beautifully written and poetic throughout. I was slightly sorry the lead character departed in the first section. What a great character!