Kielty offers bright outlook on Northern Ireland’s future
We tend not to think of TV presenters, especially comedians, as coming from tragic backgrounds. So when presenter Patrick Kielty opened My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me (BBC One) with the words “When I was 16 my father was shot dead by paramilitary gunmen”, it was a shock. My expectations for this film marking the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement changed somewhat.
I had forgotten that Kielty came to prominence as one of very few stand-up comedians in the Nineties who tackled Northern Ireland’s then seemingly intractable Troubles head on. But that’s what 20 years of peace does. It allows you to forget. Or it should do.
Kielty’s film made the point that when he and 71.1 per cent of Northern Ireland’s voters opted for peace in 1998, they rejected the past and, essentially, voted for reconciliation. Knowing some of the men behind his father’s death would be among those released from prison as part of the peace deal was a bitter pill to swallow, but he voted for it. For hope. For “a new society where the two sides could come together”.
What he couldn’t get his head around, 20 years on, was why there were still so many signs of sectarian division in Northern Ireland. He met people from all sides, visited Loyalist and Republican enclaves around Belfast where, despite two decades of peace, the memory (and possibly future threat) of violence was kept alive in huge murals of gun-wielding paramilitaries or stained-glass shrines to martyrdom, and the old divisions still underpin the day to day politics of the place.
Kielty despaired of the current collapse of the power-sharing executive due to intransigence by both the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin, and worried about the impact Brexit will have on the border. This was because, as he pointed out, key to the Agreement’s success was the idea that “when you take all those identities away there’s nothing to fight about”.
Ultimately, despite Kielty’s conclusion that Northern Ireland is being failed by politicians still stuck in the past, he found grounds for hope. Recalling the late Secretary for State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam, who did more than most to drive the peace process, Kielty put his faith in the ordinary people who voted for peace then, and a new generation that has no interest in returning to the violence of the past. It was a welcome note of optimism in this smart, thoughtful film, the truths of which seemed to take even its presenter by surprise at times.
You know if you start making excuses for a drama, that you’ve loved it more than the sum of its parts. That’s how it was with Save Me (Sky Atlantic), the supremely gripping six-parter written by and starring Lennie James about a father’s obsessive search for a missing 13-yearold daughter he’s barely even met.
This was a drama that had plenty of flaws, not least in last night’s closing part which stretched credibility a touch too far and sacrificed an emotionally satisfying ending by leaving itself open for a second series. Yet this was also a drama that transcended all such complaints simply by reaching into your chest cavity and wringing your heart out for all it was worth.
That dramatic intensity was largely down to the ferocity and magnetism of James’s performance as Nelson “Nelly” Rowe, estranged father, womaniser and barfly, who found a redemption of sorts in his near-hopeless quest. But James also deserves congratulations for a terrific script that never let up on its driving, forward momentum, and brought a tough poetry to the character of Nelly and gritty realism to all the characters in his barroom circle.
Here every actor had an opportunity to shine. Suranne Jones hit emotional heights as Nellie’s ex-partner Claire. Stephen Graham walked a razor-thin line between sympathy and repulsion as a sex offender desperately seeking salvation for the sins of his past. Susan Lynch as publican Stace, Thomas Coombes as know-it-all Goz, and Alexander Arnold as Luke, the vengeful student who held the key to everything, all put in memorable performances.
It was perhaps too much to hope that last night’s finale would deliver on absolute believability alongside all that. Luke was too unlikely to be a child abductor; Nelly’s entry into, and odyssey through, the grim paedophile underworld all happened a mite too easily. But for a thriller that was always more about character than plot, the tension was exceptionally well sustained and it packed quite a punch.
All in all, Save Me was the most impressive home-grown drama Sky has produced in a long time.
My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me ★★★★ Save Me ★★★★