A devastating fight for justice
Aberfan, no convictions. Battersea Big Dipper, no convictions. Stardust fire, no convictions. The second episode of The Accident (Channel 4) ended with a devastating and damning roll call of real-life disasters where justice was never done. The list went on. Bradford City stadium fire, Zeebrugge ferry, Piper Alpha, Marchioness, Stockline explosion. “That’s not mentioning Hillsborough or Grenfell, where the cases are, to varying degrees, open,” concluded campaigning lawyer Philip (Adrian Scarborough). “But is anyone in actual jail? No.”
As we returned to the Valleys community of Jack Thorne’s drama, loosely based on the 1966 Aberfan disaster and about a fictional Welsh town left devastated after the explosion and collapse of a industrial unit, it was six days since the tragedy which claimed nine teenage lives.
Fingers of blame were beginning to be pointed. Polly (Sarah Lancashire) feared that her husband, councillor Iwan (Mark Lewis Jones), was hiding something and we gained another intimate insight into their twisted love life. In one startling bedroom scene, Iwan went from drunkenly frisky to violent fury and finally to tears.
Bereaved Angela (Joanna Scanlan, matching Lancashire for performance power) gathered the victims’ families to fight for justice. Developer Harriet (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) faced questions over her liability. Her assistant and lover Tim (Nabhaan Rizwan) tried to protect her by leaking to the media that foreman Alan (Kai Owen) had been negligent. This drove a wedge through the town as his wife Debbie (Genevieve Barr) was ostracised. Doorstepped by journalists and haunted by Alan’s ghost, Debbie slit her wrists. She was rescued by Polly, who decided that the women must unite.
This was righteous, deceptively smart drama, leavened with flashes of warm wit, alive to both the complexities of culpability and the nuances of human relationships. It ended on a sombre funeral procession that sent a powerful statement to the outside world. As nine coffins draped in Welsh flags inched down the street, the hymn Gwahoddiad struck up: “All hail our strength and righteousness.” Polly and Debbie held hands and exchanged defiant looks. No convictions? Don’t count on it. The Accident