Oh, how I wish the BBC would trim the grim and cheer us up
Writer Jimmy McGovern says that he believes there are just as many scumbags among the working class as there are among the British aristocracy — but you would never guess that from his scripts.
Put it this way. Don’t expect a sympathetic portrayal of a hedge fund manager with a bad gambling habit or an adorable but wayward peer from his pen any time soon.
the writer — who launched his career on Liverpool- based soap Brookside and brought Cracker, the Street, Hillsborough and the Lakes to television — likes to portray the working classes in an unrelentingly heroic light.
the underclass, les pauvres, the unwaged, the council house-dwelling proletariat, the gruel gobbling unfortunates, call them what you will, in McGovern- land they are invariably the plucky victims of circumstances beyond their control. Good people who have been smote with bad luck and evil tory policies over and over again.
McGovern returns to these pet themes in Broken (BBC1), a six-part drama centred on a generic northern town. the first episode was originally scheduled to be broadcast the day after a suicide bomber killed 22 and injured 120 at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
the BBC decided to delay transmission, although it’s unclear why, as the only connection seems to be a vaguely geographical one. What is astounding is that two episodes of Broken were allowed to be broadcast during a general election campaign.
the underlying anti-government and anti- austerity messages are as unrelenting as a very long (but nicely shot) Labour party political broadcast. i kept expecting a grinning Jeremy Corbyn to pop up from behind the sofa with a lovely tray of iced buns ‘for the many, not the few’.
Five minutes into the first episode and someone is raving about a situation that is ‘driving people deeper and deeper into poverty and despair’.
And as if the real world wasn’t grim enough, here comes the ever-unconvincing Anna Friel as Christina Fitzsimmons, a skint single mum of three, who bowls around in her flip-flops sneering at politicians and struggling to make her split ends meet.
Despite the grinding poverty, she still looks peekaboo gorgeous, what with that great pouf of elsie tanner hair and her darling little ankles.
Straight away, Christina gets biffed on the nose for stealing, although she did leave an iOU in the till. She is too proud to use foodbanks, but not too proud to keep her mother’s corpse unburied for a few days so she can claim her pension.
McGovern would have us believe this is common practice among the penniless out on the margins of society, pushed into such distraught measures by a society that doesn’t care. to be frank, i think he does overdrawn people a disservice.
in Broken, the benefits office won’t give Christina any money, leaving her destitute. All this is portrayed as gritty real life, but in reality, she would be receiving Child Benefit, Child tax Credits, Working tax Credits, Housing Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance, or a combination thereof. there wouldn’t be any need to keep the bedroom windows open because of the aroma escaping from her decaying mam. And what about the father of her children? ‘Haven’t had a penny from him since the day i threw him out,’ she says, en route to pawn her wedding rings.
Couldn’t McGovern trim the grim, a little? Clearly not, yet what is annoying about characters such as Christina, on screen or off, is they marry some utterly hopeless waste of space, go on to have three kids they can’t afford and then expect the rest of us to pay for their mistakes.
Women like Christina do have agency over their lives. they don’t always have to make a bad situation worse by popping out a brood, although at least she has the excuse of her Catholicism. And this is where, i must say, Broken is redeemed. not just because of McGovern’s superior writing, but because he dares to put Christianity at the heart of a contemporary drama set in a working-class community.
A Christianity that is not, so far, depicted as malign, weird, sex-obsessed or something to be mocked. A Christianity that features men of the cloth who actually go out into their community to do good works with a good heart — like so many unsung heroes involved with the Church in real life.
i can’t remember the last time this happened on tV, where Christians are usually depicted as weird and depraved or worse — and Father ted doesn’t count.
the star turn here is Sean Bean, who stars as hollowed out Father Michael Kerrigan. this Catholic priest presides over an impoverished parish while being haunted by the cruelties of his childhood.
in his shabby world, everything is worn down, second hand, faded and dusty — including himself. the rectory gas fires are unlit, his belief is sometimes at a peep, but he still believes that if he lights a candle, it means that Jesus Christ is among us. in this week of weeks, i found that deeply moving.
Father Michael goes out into the community with food vouchers, he cares for his flock with a practical diligence.
He even carries Anna Friel’s groceries.
So i can forgive Broken and Jimmy McGovern for the usual hoopla halos tossed onto the shining heads of his oppressed scally characters.
For into their midst comes a priest of honour, even if his faith is buckling under the weight of the faith that his parishioners have in him. Can this goodness last for another four weeks?
We shall have to wait for deliverance. Amen.