This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 2nd February 2012.
DANCING
ON THE EDGE
Monday
and Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm
BEING
HUMAN
Sunday,
BBC3, 10pm
Paul
Whitelaw
Listen.
Can you hear it? That hushed collective murmur. That crackle of
furrowed brows. It can only mean one thing: maverick auteur Stephen
Poliakoff has descended from the heavens with yet another lofty drama
heaving with prestige.
One
of British television's only prominent writer/directors, Poliakoff is
renowned – and in some quarters, reviled – as an idiosyncratic
purveyor of discursive narrative and mannered style. His dramas are
often wilfully opaque and burnished with a sort of straight-faced
eccentricity which, for me at least, makes him one of the medium's
most intriguing artistes (for make no mistake, the man is an
artiste).
And
yet despite having worked in TV for over 30 years, Poliakoff has
never created a drama series. That is, until now. Spread over six
episodes, DANCING ON THE EDGE focuses on a fictional black
jazz band caught in web of dangerous intrigue in early 1930s London.
It
begins arrestingly with the suave yet hunted figure of band-leader
Louis Lester (the strikingly charismatic Chiwetel Ejiofor) seeking
desperate refuge at the headquarters of a popular music magazine
edited by rogueish critic Stanley (Matthew Goode, seemingly
channelling the winning, edgy charm of a young David Bowie). It then
flashes back to eighteen months earlier, where we discover how they
met amidst an aristocratic circle of seemingly well-meaning white
liberals who, despite professing a sincere love of Lester's
thrillingly modern music, appear to be partially attracted by the
shock-waves it causes throughout sniffy high society.
The
more enigmatic members of the group include a powerful American
tycoon played by John Goodman, whose ambiguous motives drive much of
the plot, and a benevolent playboy played by Anthony Head. The
impressive cast is rounded out by Jacqueline Bisset, Mel Smith,
Caroline Quentin and new Doctor Who companion Jenna
Louise-Coleman.
One
of the more interesting things about Dancing On the Edge is
how it merges thriller fiction with little-explored historical fact,
as The Louis Lester Band, under the auspices of the ambitious
Stanley, suddenly find themselves rubbing shoulders with royalty (in
reality, Edward VIII was friendly with the Duke Ellington band) while
struggling against ingrained prejudice and Britain's fierce
immigration policies.
It's
also interesting to see Poliakoff attempt a drama with a potentially
more populist appeal – indeed, it's vaguely redolent of The Hour
- although the downside of this is that some of his more distinctive
traits are compromised in the process. His approach at times is
clumsily heavy-handed, with characters prone to articulating their
inner motives in unnecessarily helpful detail (in episode one alone,
Head's character seems to spend most of his time excitedly looking
forward to Britain's future. Oh, if only he knew, eh viewers?). It
feels rather condescending, as if the great artiste doesn't trust his
audience with nuance of meaning. And having watched the entire
series, I can report with some authority that he spreads too little
story over too many episodes.
Furthermore,
it's little wonder that the first two episodes are screening over
successive evenings, given that very little of note actually happens
in part one. It's only in part two that the stakes are ramped up,
thus drawing you in for more. Because once it gets going its central
mystery exerts a fairly solid grip – the gnawing question of who
Lester can really trust among his new friends is effectively
sustained throughout – and the cast never put a foot wrong. The
original period score by Adrian Johnston is appropriately lively, and
Poliakoff has lost none of his knack for creating unsettling moods
within the artfully oppressive confines of grand houses and hotels.
That's one of his “things”, dontcha know.
Similarly
obsessed with the horror of hotels, albeit of a tattier three-star
persuasion, is writer Toby Whithouse, who delivered a memorable
episode of Doctor Who in 2011 which owed much to Kubrick's The
Shining. He's at it again with the fifth series of BEING
HUMAN, which positions two of its central characters – Hal the
vampire and Tom the werewolf – as lowly employees at a hotel in
which all manner of blood-caked supernatural mayhem inevitably
ensues.
This
is the first series of this black comedy-drama in which the original
trio of house-sharing ghouls don't appear at all. Fortunately, actors
Damien Moloney, Michael Socha and Kate Bracken – a Scottish actress
who would've been a far more effective Amy Pond in Doctor Who
than Karen Gillan ever was – are capable, likeable replacements.
But the problem now with Being Human isn't that the cast has
changed, but that the format feels tired.
The
personal (if you will) demons and emotional dynamic between the
three characters are essentially identical to those of the original
line-up. It feels like we've seen it all before. Also, the conceit of
introducing a powerful new antagonist every year, who must always be
bigger and badder than previous foes, now feels rather rote and
strained. All ongoing dramas are bound by formula to an extent, but
Being Human appears to have exhausted itself.
You
know it's getting desperate when even the addition of Phil Davis in
his grizzled, scowling pomp can't add much juice to proceedings. I'd
like to be proved wrong, but I don't hold out much hope.
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