Resnick (1992-'93)

British TV has always been awash with TV detectives, but they fall into two distinctive categories; there's the made-for-TV cops, and then there's those adapted from pre-existing bestselling crime and thriller literature. In the '80s and '90s it's fair to say that the BBC dominated the former category with a gold run of populist fare that featured the likes of Shoestring, Bergerac, and Spender. Whilst adaptations were principally ITV's domain, the jewels in the crown consisting of  David Suchet's Poirot, Jeremy Brett's definitive Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse and A Touch of Frost. 

The BBC's only real popular foray into adaptation was Lovejoy, but that genial, comfortable Sunday night offering was so far removed from the grubby, cutthroat violent and X rated nature of Jonathan Gash's original novels, and the programme only adapted a couple of the books in the first series anyway, so that need not detain us further.

So at some point in the '90s the BBC woke up to the sobering fact that ITV had the monopoly and thus they attempted to produce adaptations of other popular literary detective series for themselves. Perhaps the most successful (in terms of long-running at least) of these was Dalziel and Pascoe, the chalk-and-cheese sleuthing duo created by Reginald Hill. That series got off to a very strong start thanks to fabulously droll adaptations from Alan Plater and Malcolm Bradbury no less, and ran for eleven years - though they abandoned the source material provided by Hill very early on, offering us the law of diminishing returns. 

But on a par with those early Dalziel and Pascoe adaptations is a mini-series from four years earlier - the BBC's attempts to bring John Harvey's sandwich eating, multiple cat owning and jazz loving Nottingham based cop DI Charlie Resnick to the screen. The channel made just two adaptations of the Resnick novels - Lonely Hearts and Rough Treatment - starring Tom Wilkinson and, having watched them for the first time just a couple of years ago, I've been scratching my head to think why they didn't go on to adapt every single one of them because, quite simply, this would have given ITV's Morse and Frost a good run for their money.

It helps of course that the author himself, John Harvey, adapted the novels for TV. But crucially the director of Lonely Hearts, Bruce MacDonald, understands the material beautifully and gives us something unique that still stands out as a distinctive piece of drama some twenty-four years later. Crucially MacDonald's style, combined with his knowledge and understanding of Harvey occasionally somewhat fragmentary writing style, works in close harmony to deliver an deeply atmospheric piece. Like the jazz beloved of our central character, Harvey's writing often strays from the narrative through line to provide quirky and unusual flourishes or glimpses of other themes. This is best exemplified in the way that we see the team at Nottingham CID (which includes a youngish David Neilsen before he headed to the cobbles of Coronation Street, looking rather different with short hair and a military moustache, and actor/writer William Ivory as a scene-stealing leery, neanderthal cop who despite his blunt methods gets the job done in a way we cannot help but admire) involve themselves in other secondary cases or how we catch references to their home lives. All of these instances help lend a sense of multi-dimensionality and authenticity to the proceedings.

That said, MacDonald's directorial style isn't going to be to everyone's tastes and it is not without its flaws. In creating such a distinctive atmosphere it often runs the risk of being a touch too oblique, with sections of footage done, POV style, from the perspective of our protagonists, often lingering on minor details and abstract items. And there are a lot of moments set at night were everything is just so damn dark - but that might actually be down to the quality of the off-air recording from 1992 (sadly these adaptations have never been officially released and only bootlegs are available) that I watched, I don't know.

The world of Resnick as created by John Harvey is both a well-written and addictive one, and I've enjoyed reading a few novels in recent years. Tom Wilkinson inhabits the character depicted upon the page rather well (though I perhaps expected and would have liked a more native Notts accent) and accurately captures that kind of melancholic detective who seems to have a black cloud perpetually hovering above his head and feels a little too much really well. It's a cliche now I guess, the over-empathetic policeman, but I don't imagine it was at the time. 

The second adaptation, Rough Treatment, arrived a year later in 1993. It was another classy production but, with a different director (Peter Smith) at the helm it felt a little lacking with little to lift the proceedings above watchable, despite Jim Carter and Tom Georgeson as a good pair of chalk and cheese crooks and Sheila Gish having fun as the bored and frustrated wife of a TV director. However, I don't believe for a minute that this slighter offering sealed the fate of any further adaptations - ultimately I can only presume the ascent Wilkinson's career enjoyed round about the mid '90s with The Full Monty ultimately taking him to Hollywood was the real reason Resnick was so short-lived.

DI Charlie Resnick has been on my mind this week because I'm reading another novel and am tempted to revisit these adaptations this evening. In looking over my review (which originally appeared on Letterboxd) I came across John Harvey's blog and saw that the great man himself actually referenced my review here - to have a celebrated author you personally respect single out your writing and describe it as 'really interesting' has made my day!

Out On Blue Six: Sleaford Mods

End Transmission

Best Laid Plans (2012)

From a script by Chris Green, director David Blair's 2012 film Best Laid Plans throws knowing glances towards John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in both its title and in its central partnership of small time hustler Danny, played by Stephen Graham, and his gentle giant friend Joseph played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. But to call it a contemporary British remake of that classic would actually be erroneous.

The central conceit is that Danny, mired in debt to local gangster Curtis (David O'Hara), must persuade Joseph, a person with learning difficulties and stupendous strength, to enter the violent world of underground, illegal cage fighting, broadcast to the world via the web, in an effort to dissuade Curtis from exacting his revenge over the unpaid debts.

I must admit as the film commenced, with Stephen Graham breathlessly running down the snow covered Nottingham streets, pursued by a car carrying O'Hara and his goons to the soundtrack of The Enemy's 'We'll Live and Die In These Towns', I was immediately up for this ride.  However, the criminal and cage fighting aspects of Green's screenplay not only provide unwelcome interruptions into the lives of Danny and Joseph, they also ended up providing the same reaction to me too, because Best Laid Plans actually finds something far more interesting in not only the unlikely caring relationship between our two leads, but also in Joseph's hesitant courtship with Maxine Peake's character, Isabel who - like him - also has learning difficulties. Once Peake enters the film, accompanied by her parents who are encouraging in the romance she has with Joseph, I found my interest being piqued far more at the potential for a narrative based solely on this unusual, but working domestic/caring setup that Danny and Joseph exist in, essentially being family for one another. When Isabel's mother points out Danny could apply for carers allowance for all that he does to aid Joseph, I found myself hoping the film would go down this route instead - especially when Danny finds love with Emma Stansfield's sex worker, Lisa, extending the 'family'. It does do this to a certain extent, but this isn't Ken Loach alas, and we're quickly brought back to yet another, deeply formulaic moment of bareknuckle brutality that will keep the bargain bin DVD crowd who enjoy the bloody British gangland genre happy and who the DVD cover and press for the film are clearly (though wrongly) targeting. 

Outside of the This is England films, Stephen Graham has made some disappointing movies, but he is an actor who seems positively incapable of turning in a disappointing performance and he has seemingly found his niche in films and roles that take us from the brutally uncompromising to the heartbreakingly tender, often in the same scene. Maxine Peake is another performer I have the upmost admiration for - in fact she's one of my all time favourite actresses - and, whilst she has yet to find a cinematic vehicle to stand shoulder to shoulder with her achievements on the small screen or stage, praise is most certainly due to her subtly effective and sympathetic performance as Isabel, matched nicely with Akinnuoye-Agbaje performance as Danny, who moves from childlike wonder to extreme violence without ever losing the viewer.

Blair's direction is very good and the film looks brilliant, but there's something missing here that I think lies with the screenplay. Ultimately the distracting criminal aspect, as represented by O'Hara (maybe this is my fault though as he's an actor I must admit to not being keen on; he's a one note performer, and that note is Glaswegian menace, with a voice that is thick and gravelly to the point of incomprehensible) and his slippery associate Lee Ingleby, becomes too much of a chore, sapping the strengths of the character studies that make up the rest of the narrative, though without them I'm not sure how the film would actually work. A further draft and a tighter, more cohesive approach to the film may have made this something a little bit more special than it is, but it more or less manages to remain a watchable and emotionally engaging affair nonetheless.

Rapid Reviews: Cutting Edge by John Harvey

I'd previously read just one novel by John Harvey and that was 2014's Darkness, Darkness - the final novel in the 13-book series featuring his hero Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick. That novel concerned a cold case mystery left unresolved from the days of the miners strike of 1984/'85. It was OK, a readable affair, but I felt I needed to have experienced Resnick before to have perhaps fully appreciated it. 

So I went back to 1991 and book 3 in the series, Cutting Edge which I recommend. 

A savage assault with a scalpel leaves Dr Tim Fletcher's body badly slashed in a deserted hospital walkway - the first victim in a series of brutal assaults on NHS staff in Nottingham. As panic grips the city, it's up to DI Resnick to find the killer. His chief suspect appears to be an over confident, sexually abusive medical student who had previously dated Fletcher's girlfriend - but is he and his team letting their dislike for the man clouding their judgement? Faced with a mass of clues that lead nowhere, Resnick is confronted by a face from his own past as he finds himself pushed to breaking point.

I really enjoyed this one and have come to like Resnick, the sandwich eating, multiple cat owning and jazz loving troubled 'tec. So much so that I went on to ioffer and bought a DVD of the BBC's sole attempts at adapting Harvey's novels (Lonely Hearts and Rough Treatment, books 1 and 2 in the series) starring Tom Wilkinson in the role and dating back to the early '90s.

Cutting Edge is an engrossing read full of lovely little details that play out on the periphery of the main crime; there's a handful of other investigations Resnick's team are currently looking into, and then there's their home lives too with one of his detective constable's struggling with a wife suffering from post natal depression, and Resnick himself finding himself putting up a drunken down and out acquaintance based on their mutual love for jazz. In tackling these various strands Harvey's style is quite fragmentary at times but it's never alienating or difficult in its approach. Without giving anything away, a turning point of the plot concerns a medical phenomena that is rarely spoken of and quite terrifying to consider!

But if reading Cutting Edge isn't appealing to you, you could always try listening to this enjoyable full-cast adaptation for Radio 4 dating back to 1996 and starring Tom Georgeson as Resnick, a young John Simm as Tim Fletcher and  Gillian Bevan who plays staff nurse Sarah Leonard and also provides the chanteuse torch song style vocals to the play's theme tune.

Summer (2008)

Summer sees two veterans of Ken Loach films, Robert Carlyle and Steve Evets team up to play lifelong friends Shaun and Daz in a deeply heartfelt, sombre drama set in Nottingham.

Once the town bad boys, we witness their friendship through three time periods; their innocent childhood riding around on bikes and getting into scrapes - some minor some major, their adolescence when love and alcohol enter into the mix and Shaun's turmoil at school with seemingly undiagnosed dyslexia and uncaring teachers is alleviated by his feelings for local lass Katy (as a teen played by Joanna Tulaj, and as an adult, Racheal Blake) and lastly their approaching middle age which sees Shaun serve as carer to the now wheelchair bound and alcoholic Daz, whose days are numbered due to terminal cirrhosis. 

Director Kenny Glanaan, working from a screenplay by Hugh Ellis, delivers a tale of regret and empty lives thanks to missed or completely, purposefully ignored opportunities in a simple yet utterly authentic and honest way. It's a great study in friendship and loyalty, guilt and responsibility that is thankfully subtly done rather than depicted in such a way as to beat the viewer of the head with. The key to the story is of course threaded through the three timelines, which appear on occasion almost like ghosts to the middle aged and suitably haunted looking Shaun. These interwoven strands come together hazily and lazily like the summer itself in an especially effective manner which explores the reason for the strong bond that unites the central pair, and just why Shaun is so devoted to his friend - a  reason that remains compellingly hidden to the audience until the very end. This is a bold and leisurely move that benefits the narrative and the structure of the piece extremely well, allowing us to explore first and foremost the relationships between the characters, helping us get to know them - which is important, and drawing out their three dimensional nature as a result.

Summer explores the gritty side of life and benefits from the extremely naturalistic performances of its cast (including an extremely good performance from Carlyle which he himself claims he is very proud, and rightly so) acting just as one would expect such characters to do in the real world. This is especially true in how the film depicts 'the sins of the father' trope; Evets' son, played by Michael Socha, is clearly going off the rails just as he had once done thanks to the booze yet the film refuses to use this opportunity to serve as propaganda or show him through the narrative the error of his ways. Mistakes are made in reality and Summer is clearly intent to simply record reality as close as possible. As a result there's no pandering to the sentimental or the schmaltzy, no sweet cinematic reconciliation or Hollywood style manipulative tugs at the heart strings. Yes this is a film which features disability and alcoholism, but it does so in an authentic matter of fact manner in keeping with film makers like the aforementioned Ken Loach or Shane Meadows, who as a native Midlander is of course no stranger to setting films in this part of the world.

If I have any minor gripes about Summer it is that the actors playing the young Shaun and Daz (Sean Kelly and Joe Doherty) great though they are, are too dissimilar to Carlyle and Evets and that on occasion there are some sloppy moments that take you out of the action; for example, we see one scene play out in real time which has Carlyle ask a receptionist if he can see Katy, who is now a successful solicitor. The receptionist goes off to check and seems to have Carlyle's full name and reason for attending that day, despite never having asked him. But these are minor gripes in what is an otherwise interesting low budget film, the kind that I'd like to see Carlyle do more of nowadays because its the best I've seen him for some time and clearly where his heart really lies.

Last Night's Tele : Artsnight with Maxine Peake

BBC2's new arts based series, Artsnight, followed Newsnight at 11pm last night and proved to be a real highlight in last night's schedule, primarily because the debut episode gave complete editorial control over to the great Maxine Peake

Peake perhaps naturally gave voice to to figures marginalised by mainstream culture and fittingly (for it is International Women's Day tomorrow) chaired a discussion on women in the arts and the problems and inequality they face with actress and writer Jessica Hynes, directors Clio Barnard (a favourite of mine) and Carol Morley and the Royal Court's Vicky Featherstone.

As well as celebrating the bard of Salford, Shelagh Delaney and, perhaps most affectingly, the 96 year old Manchester based campaigner Betty Tebbs, Maxine helped provide a showcase for 'the most controversial band in Britain' Sleaford Mods

I recommend this half hour programme wholeheartedly. Catch it on iPlayer where it will be available for the next month.

Nice one Maxine!

The Ragman's Daughter (1972)

Whilst away last week I got up to one of my favourite pastimes, scouring the vintage bookshops the little Yorkshire market towns and villages have to offer. I managed to pick up a couple of Alan Sillitoe books, an author I first read in my teen years.

The Ragman's Daughter is just one short story in a collection of the same name dating from 1963. Reading it back last week transported me to when I first read it in what must be almost twenty years ago now, but I was surprised to read in the book's blurb that a film had been made from the tale. On getting back home I searched online and found out that in 1972 Sillitoe adapted the story for a film starring the young Simon Rouse (The Bill) and Victoria Tennant (The Winds of War and the former Mrs Steve Martin) in their first roles as Tony, a young thief and Doris, the ragman's daughter of the title.  The young lovers lead an adrenaline-fuelled existence of thieving and adventure. Taunting the grim grey world around them with their mad acts - he with his motor bike, she with her horse - until the day when their luck runs out.

Simon Rouse and Victoria Tennant as Tony and Doris

Sillitoe opens up his story for the 90 minute feature by fleshing out the role of the narrator, which is Rouse's character Tony several years on. He's played here by Patrick O'Connell, an actor with a tremendously dour, weary face. It needs to be too, for Sillitoe really ramps up the cynicism in his bittersweet tale by having Tony haunted by his time with Doris, making it clear it was the only time he was ever truly happy. This is in contrast to the original story which, for all its reflective style, did at least show Tony as someone who had made amends with his past.

Patrick O'Connell as Tony at 35

Overall, despite being a good enough little movie I would recommend the printed page over this cinematic adaptation. Sillitoe's original clearly established Tony and Doris' youth as occurring in the 1950s, but the film sets it in the then present day of the 1970s (making O'Connell's Tony at the age of 35 a rather strange experience, as that's clearly the 1970s too!) As such the film struggles with the implicit nature of the story, as it can't help but feel a little dated and out of time. Reading the story, I can well imagine the cobbled streets that Doris traverses down on horseback with their rows of Nottingham terraces and outdoor toilets, unchanged since Victorian times as the 1950s. But seeing them as the '70s, with Tennant looking more like a sun kissed modern day Lady Godiva vision of beauty or shampoo commercial model (Doris was attractive in the story but not I feel to this extent!) just makes it feel a little unreal and realism was always where Sillitoe excelled. 

The Ragman's Daughter comes a-calling

I'm not disputing that cobbled streets, outdoor loos and horses didn't appear in the North or the Midlands in the 70s, after all they filmed in just such a place! (plus I grew up a stone's throw away from a still cobbled street, have fond memories of the local rag and bone man still using his horse into the early 90s and my late granddad still had an outdoor loo until his death last year) But it just doesn't sit right to see her on the horse on such streets up there on the screen in this production somehow. It feels dated, yet strangely in showing Tony getting sent down to Borstal it feels like it preempts later fare such as Scum.

Borstal bound

An enjoyable enough experience, The Ragman's Daughter is an overlooked and unfairly forgotten British movie that whilst deserving of more attention cannot help but feel inferior alongside Sillitoe's other cinematic forays; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner.

The book I bought