Brendan O’Regan
Despite ‘diversity and fragmentation’, the quality of the past week’s dramatic offerings could draw a wide audience, writes Brendan O’Regan
With the diversity and fragmentation of TV viewing it’s rare that one programme generates a high degree of anticipation any more, and rare that a large percentage of the viewing population would tune in to watch at the same time.
I’d say the latest episode of BBC’s Sherlock was one of those rarities, broadcast simultaneously on BBC 1 and RTÉ 2 on New Year’s Day. There was considerable hype in advance, so it came as no surprise that the setting reverted to the more traditional Victorian London of the Conan Doyle stories – a bold and clever move typical of the flashy and confident style of the show. I thought that aspect worked a treat, with all the regular characters transported back in time but staying in character, with the addition of some handlebar moustaches and giant sideburns. The script was sharp and witty as usual and the visual style as flamboyant as ever.
There was much ironic interplay between the Sherlock Holmes of the show’s reality and the Sherlock of Dr Watson’s stories for a popular Victorian magazine. And then, just as were enjoying the different layers, the modern Sherlock was landed into the mix, whereupon RTÉ 2 took a most ill-timed ad break! After that the brain went into overdrive trying to process the dizzying array of possibilities.
The main plot was a good one, with the ‘Abominable Bride’ apparently returning from the grave to murder philandering men. Holmes insisted there were no ghosts, while Watson irritated him by referring to ‘the spectre’.
Unfortunately that plot became somewhat dissipated and lost its considerable momentum to the hokum about Sherlock’s ‘mind palace’. Some scenes were gruesome, and Sherlock’s drug use was treated rather ambiguously, though Dr Watson certainly didn’t approve. While it was hugely enjoyable I thought the show got a little too clever for itself in the end, and a comparison with earlier episodes will not flatter.
Also set in 18th Century London, Dickensian (BBC 1) is a drama series that cleverly weaves together many of Dickens’ characters into one multi-layered story. Thus we have the Old Curiosity Shop down the road from Scrooge and Marley’s offices, Mr Pickwick and friends socialising at the local pub, the Havishams from Great Expectations walking the same streets as Fagan and Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist. I’d say the show is more enjoyable the more you know the Dickens novels and, as with Sherlock, the London ambiance is superbly recreated, but then the folks at BBC drama productions have long done this better than anyone.
Stephen Rea gives a wonderfully mannered performance as Inspector Bucket from Bleak House, pioneering modern detective methods as he investigates the murder of Marley, while another Irish actor Ned Dennehy (recently in RTÉ’s Clean Break) is suitably repulsive, oozing humbug as Ebenezer Scrooge (probably the Christmas before his redemption).
The scheduling has been irregular during the Christmas season but the plot certainly thickened on last Friday night’s episode when Bucket seemed to get a breakthrough in the murder case and came up with a most unlikely suspect. That episode also dropped in the hint of a gay subplot, which owes more to modern concerns than to Dickens.
I can’t be quite as enthusiastic about RTÉ’s new drama Rebellion, which started last Sunday night on RTÉ One. This is one of the broadcaster’s most high profile programmes to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising and after viewing the first episode I’m inclined to stick to the documentaries.
The productions values are top class, especially the location work – for example around Dublin Castle and the GPO. They’ve even re-instated Nelson’s Pillar. Like the other two shows reviewed above the ambiance of the times is well created, but while fairly interesting the storyline has too much of the taste of soap about it, with the focus on romance and politics in the lives of three very different women of the time, all three fictional.
Pearse, Connolly and others make occasional appearances, but others are too much like representative types rather than three-dimensional characters. All the romances are unappealing – one woman reluctantly being rushed into marriage by her family, another enthusiastically in an adulterous relationship with a Dublin Castle official, and the third possibly infatuated by Pearse. And we could have done without the crude language that seems obligatory in RTÉ dramas these days.
Maybe things will improve as the Rising gets going.
Pick of the Week
CATHOLIC LIVES
EWTN, Sunday, Jan 10, 7.30am, Monday, Jan 11, 2pm
Kathy Sinnott speaks with Bernadette Goulding, who recounts stories of Irish women wounded by abortion who found healing through Rachel’s Vineyard.
The Big Questions
BBC 1, Sunday, Jan 10, 10.00am
Return of the moral, ethical and religious discussion series with Nicky Campbell.
The Meaning Of Life, With Gay Byrne
RTĖ One, Sunday, Jan 10, 10.35pm
Ruby Wax, comedian and author, speaks frankly to Gay Byrne about her life, her career on stage and screen, and her marriage and family.