THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL (HAPPY VALLEY, SERIES ONE)
When is a police thriller more than just a police thriller?
When it's the first series of 'Happy Valley'.
Sally Wainwright's six part series tells the story of a police sergeant's obsession with an offender who destroyed her daughter.
But it is also about a fractured family in a very fractured Yorkshire community.
© BBC StudiosThe first series of 'Happy Valley' finds 'Coronation Street' alumna Sarah Lancashire's Sergeant Catherine Cawood juggling a chaotic homelife with the considerable demands of being a community beat cop
Catherine lives in Calder Valley with her sister, Siobhan Finneran's recovering heroin addict Claire Cartwright and also her grandson, Rhys Connah's Ryan.
The boy's teenage mum committed suicide following his birth and after becoming involved with James Norton's thug Tommy Lee Royce who has a propensity for sexual violence and is Ryan's dad.
Catherine's decision to raise Ryan has split the family, with her journalist husband Derek Riddell's Richard Cawood leaving her and her son, Karl Davies' Daniel also resenting the decision.
© BBC StudiosWith the help of Claire, Catherine ploughs on, ensuring Ryan is packed off to school and dealing with frequent calls from his teachers concerned about his behaviour.
Catherine juggles this messy domestic life with being a dedicated police sergeant - guiding other police officers and also responding to calls in a community which she cares about deeply.
Most of the incidents she and her colleagues respond to in their west Yorkshire town are drug fuelled.
Early on, she has to deal with a drug addict ranting manically in a playground.
© BBC StudiosLater, an ice cream van is stolen by addicts.
Calder Valley is like a lot of northern communities post the 1980s - struggling with deprivation and the pernicious activities of drug gangs.
But while this concerns Catherine, it is a brief glimpse while driving of a recently released Tommy Lee Royce back on the streets, peering at the window of a Chinese takeaway that really rattles her.
Tommy has found work with Joe Armstrong's shifty builder Ashley Cowgill who makes money on the sly, smuggling drugs hidden in bags of gravel.
© BBC StudiosAshley is approached with an idea to make money by Steve Pemberton's Kevin Weatherill, a seemingly mild mannered accountant at a local company run by George Costigan's businessman Nevison Gallagher.
Smarting after Nevison rejected his approach for a raise to help him fund his daughter's education, Kevin on the spur of the moment suggests if Ashley can arrange for his boss's daughter, Charlie Murphy's Ann to be kidnapped, they could all make easy money.
Ashley bites at the idea but asks Tommy and another employee, Adam Long's Lewis Whippy to do their dirty work.
Following Ann's mini in their van, Lewis pretends to run into the back of her car on an isolated rural road, with Tommy abducting her and bundling her into their vehicle before disposing of her car.
© BBC StudiosUsing her phone, Ashley, who is a little too sure of himself for his own good, pretends to be a go between - making ransom demands from Nevinson and warning him about the consequences for Ann if he goes to the police.
There are three problems, however, for Ashley and Kevin that threaten to undermine their scheme.
Overcome with guilt, especially after he discovers Nevinson's wife Jill Baker's Helen is dying from cancer, Kevin almost spills the beans at the local police station.
Another problem is Catherine who is struck by Kevin's bizarre behaviour when he visits the station.
© BBC StudiosWith her determined to track Tommy down to prevent him from harming anyone is the community again, his involvement is a real issue
And he turns out to be the biggest headache of all, thanks to his propensity for violence - particularly sexual violence - and an inability to follow orders.
As Tommy wreaks havoc, Lewis becomes increasingly twitchy about his behaviour.
When Tommy kills Sophie Rundle's PC Kirsten McAskill in Ann's car on an isolated rural road after she pulls over Lewis's van while they are moving their kidnapping victim to a new location, events spiral.
© BBC StudiosAnd if that wasn't enough, Tommy further exacerbates the situation by attempting to make contact with Ryan after discovering he is his son.
Wainwright's first series of 'Happy Valley' is a brilliantly modulated piece of writing, impressively balancing a rich array of characters and tough themes.
Like all great British TV crime dramas such as 'Prime Suspect,' 'Unforgotten' and the early series of 'Cracker,' 'Broadchurch' and 'Line of Duty,' most of the characters are wonderfully flawed and full of contradictions.
While she tends to several spinning plates at home and work, Catherine's short temper sometimes gets the better of her.
© BBC StudiosWainwright's heroine regrets a telling off she administered to Kirsten the day before she dies.
She beds her ex-husband, Riddell's local reporter Richard who is married to Kelly Harrison's Ros.
This is despite being miffed at his reluctance to be a proper grandfather to Ryan.
Then there's Kevin who is a nervous conspirator in the abduction case.
© BBC StudiosAs he gets snared in the spur of the moment get rich quick scheme he devised, he is thrown into further turmoil when Nevinson relents on his pay rise and later confides in him about the kidnapping, trusting him to ferry the ransom money.
His nemesis Ashley is a cocky criminal masquerading as a local builder who starts to panic when events spiral out of control and when his hairdresser wife, Rachel Leskovac's Julie becomes increasingly alarmed by the prospect of the police discovering his criminal activities.
No opportunity is wasted by Wainwright.
Every character is rich and every one feels well and truly lived in.
© BBC StudiosThis makes it easier for the cast and the series' directors Euros Lyn, Tim Fywell and Wainwright herself to get under their skin.
Lancashire is simply superb in the lead role as Catherine - diligent, strong willed, haunted by her daughter's death, fiercely protective of Ryan and her community and determined to prevent Tommy from unleashing havoc.
Norton is terrific too as Tommy - a reckless, macho villain who likes to physically dominate those around him and yet is also oddly sentimental about the prospect of being a dad.
Finneran provides a performance full of heart as Clare, while Pemberton, Armstrong and Long convince as jittery conspirators in a kidnapping plot where it gradually becomes clear just how out of their depth they really are.
© BBC StudiosCostigan, Baker and Murphy engage our sympathies as Nevinson, Helen and Ann.
Connah is an effective child performer as Ryan, while Riddell, Davies and Harrison do a very good job conveying the awkwardness and ambivalence the rest of the family feel towards the boy.
With an abundance of narrative riches, Wainwright shows incredible discipline as the story unfolds - playing all her cards at the right time.
As events spiral, you never feel she and her fellow directors lose their grip on the narrative which could easily happen.
With its strong sense of community, 'Happy Valley' also feels very grounded.
Its depiction of small town criminality and social deprivation beds it in a realism that really resonates with the viewer.
'Happy Valley' isn't content with just being a police procedural.
Its genius lies in Wainwright's ability to subtly fuse the political with the personal too.
© BBC StudiosHer depiction of a Yorkshire town struggling with drug addiction in the wake of the decline of industrial Britain never feels like heavy handed polemic.
Rather she gently makes her point with a heartfelt portrait of a fractured community struggling to find its purpose and a damaged family coping with the very real after-effects of it all.
'Happy Valley' is a superb show with grit, with heart and with a genuine interest in the world around it.
In fact, it is a stone cold classic that we will be talking about for many years to come.
(The first series of 'Happy Valley' was broadcast on BBC1 from April 29-June 3, 2014)
Comments
Post a Comment