A home-wrecker, a missing baby — and a script whizzed up in a blender
David Bowie used to write songs — or so he claimed — by scribbling down a lyric, snipping it into fragments, and throwing the bits into the air.
However they landed, that’s what he sang. He called it the cut-up technique.
The ghost of Ziggy Stardust must be writing telly drama these days — either that or someone slipped the script of The Cry (BBC1) into a food blender.
Scenes blitzed past our eyes in a confused blur. The opening sequence showed Jenna Coleman as struggling young mum Joanna, leaving three different houses and getting into three different cars wearing her hair in three different styles.
That told us nothing, except to instil a sense that something bad had happened, or was happening, or was going to happen. Joanna emphasised this, by telling the camera smugly that what she had suffered was the worst nightmare any parent could endure.
Her self-satisfied self-pity gave another intimation of this four-part serial’s failings. Joanna isn’t likeable. She’s a home-wrecker, who lashes out at anyone who tries to get close to her.
True, she’s a saint compared to her bullying pig of a husband, whose selfishness has driven his first wife to drink and who pursued her through the courts to win custody of their teenage daughter.
as if that’s not unpleasant enough, the man is a political spin doctor. He’s called alistair — wonder what inspired Helen Fitzgerald, who wrote the original novel, to pick that name for a two-faced thug in the Parliamentary shadows?
everyone in this tale is nasty, especially the passengers on a flight to australia, who shout helpful suggestions such as: ‘Give the brat some Scotch,’ when baby Noah gets restless.
By the way, as any parent who has nursed a real screamer can attest, the noise little Noah made was nothing like full-blown crying. Professional wailers do that whimpering as a warm-up, just to clear their throats. This drama ought to be called The Grizzle.
Perhaps the disjointed editing was meant to convey the confused, nauseated feeling of sleep deprivation and exhaustion that new parents can suffer.
But as we ricocheted from the aeroplane to a drunken girls’ night out, from bedroom to courtroom, and from a brewing political scandal in Britain to the baby’s disappearance from a car in oz, it all felt more like doing a cryptic crossword in your head.
Kaleidoscopic flashbacks can be hypnotic if properly used — as they are in Trust, the Seventies kidnap drama starring donald Sutherland as miserly billionaire J. Paul Getty. The Cry, on the other hand, appears to be timehopping to hide the fact its central story isn’t very good.
For a straightforward account of aussie crime, we have double helpings of No Activity (BBC2), the scabrous sitcom about two thick-witted coppers on a stakeout in their car.
Hendy and Stokes (the show’s writers, Patrick Brammall and darren Gilshenan) bicker, gossip and moan about their love lives while they wait for something to happen. Back at the station, emergency call handlers Carol and april are doing the same — and, at their hideout, so are bored kidnappers Steve and Neddy.
it’s a clever twist on noir Tv. Most shows focus on the breakthroughs and the chases...but what about the endless hours when nothing much happens?
Be warned, this is australian humour and about as subtle as dingo droppings. if you don’t want to know in detail about the bathroom habits of Carol’s revolting teenage son, you might be wiser to steer clear.
HIGH PRAISE OF THE WEEKEND: ‘You are good, darling,’ was judge Craig Revel Horwood’s only comment to Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts on Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1). Coming from him, that’s an ovation. And she scored this year’s first ‘9’. Wow!