As gritty as The Wire, almost as great as the Lights are back on
The recruits simply aspire to be good coppers like Gerry. But there’s interference
Don’t blow it! Don’t suffer Difficult Second Series Syndrome! That’s what I’m saying to myself as Belfast’s rookie cops hit the streets for the return of my favourite drama of 2023. But can Blue Lights survive Gerry’s shock demise?
He was the best character last time – the seen-it-all, bookedit-all, grizzled force veteran mentoring the newbies. Gerry sported aviator shades like Peter “Easy Rider” Fonda in defiance of the city’s seven different types of rain, as the neon legend confirms, but unfortunately they couldn’t protect him from its gangsters.
The fact I rated a cop drama above everything else is remarkable because I like to think I’m smart and discerning and know all their moves.
But there are so many of these shows and they can beat you into submission, making you squeal: “Okay, okay, I’ll tune in next week! I confess: this detective is mavericky, how on earth did you dream him up?”
This is a lie, of course. All telly tecs are mavericky – it’s the law. And I have to write about them – it’s my job – which can seem similar to a community service order, as if I’m cutting the grass at an old folks’ home or whitewashing the walls of a youth club. A lot of cop dramas are like watching paint dry, but not Blue Lights.
There are no mavericks and no detectives, just some young or – in ex-social worker Grace’s case – career-change ‘peelers’ learning on the job in a tough town.
“Big-time lonesome town,” warbles Johnny Cash in squad car seven-six, doubtless with someplace else in mind, but it could be Belfast, which is postTroubles now but not that much easier to police.
In season one the cops had to battle a Republican crime family and now Loyalists are flooding the place with drugs. Tiny pouches furtively change hands, a homeless man pushes his worldly goods in a shopping trolley, a victim of heroin overdose is found dead in a park.
We could be watching The Wire; Blue Lights is that gritty and aspires to be that great.
The recruits simply aspire to be good coppers like Gerry. But there’s interference (last time MI5; now the Paramilitary Crime Task Force) and cutbacks aplenty.
No wonder recruits are quitting to become lorry drivers, earning more money. Jen is now a lawyer but the writer-director double-act of former journalists Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson have retained interest in the character who, right after qualifying, is looking up files on a chip-shop bombing from the time of the Troubles, the culprit never caught.
A victim was the dad of Gerry’s confidante Happy who tells her: “Nobody would talk. That’s the thing about this place: even after all these years, people think the truth is dangerous.”
Meanwhile, those that remain keep coppering with Lawn and Patterson at least affording them the odd joke and snatched moment away from work.
Last time, Jen bonked her supervisor in the station. Grace (Sian Brooke) and Stevie (Martin McCann) are still juggling patrols in car seven-two with tentative romance.
And Annie, played by Katherine Devlin, proud possessor of the most Irish of circular faces, deduces the issue that’s bothering Tommy (Nathan Braniff ): “You know what you need? A ride.”
Meanwhile, by 2099 it’s expected Lagos will have grown to be the biggest city on the planet: 88 million.
In Michael Palin in Nigeria it already seems too chaotic for the now 80-year-old, buffeted and bewildered on a boat-ride through a floating slum.
He heads up country where a sign on a beach reads: “No fighting, no smoking of Indian hemp, no homosexualism … ”
Palin wonders: “How do you enjoy yourself here?” It certainly wasn’t fun in the 17th century when the Brit-managed slave trade was in full, gruesome swing and our guide is chilled to find himself at he aptly-named Point of No Return.
Then onwards to Kano for an ancient ceremony involving fireeaters, knife-lickers and baby alligators spreading panic. Palin’s expression is pure Prince Philipon-tour.
Who remembers Adam Adamant Lives!? A ridiculously thrilling show about a cape-andcane Edwardian gent awakened from frozen sleep in Swingin’ London to combat crime.
Mammoth is its comedy cousin wherein a PE teacher (Mike Bubbins) lost in an avalanche on a skiing trip in 1979 is defrosted and returned to his school to be bamboozled by women running departments and the abolition of woodwork lessons (“So what do we do with all the thick kids?”)
I laugh but probably shouldn’t.
There’s a lot of history being uncovered in this week’s best podcasts, and whether based in fact or reality, they promise to take to take listeners on immersive expeditions. 1984
This adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is truly an immersive listening experience.
You can tell that the BAFTA award-winning director Destiny Ekaragha (Ted Lasso, The End of the F—-ing World), Olivier Award-nominated writer Joe White (Blackout Songs, The Little Big Things), along with awardwinning composer Ilan Eshkeri (BBC’s A Perfect World, Ghost of Tsushima) who co-created the original score with Muse’s Matthew Bellamy, were very particular about how they built out the landscape of this Audible original podcast.
With the help of its starstudded cast, 1984 mirrors the true essence of Orwell’s political dystopian classic and cautionary tale about rebellious worker Winston Smith (Andrew Garfield), who keeps a forbidden diary as he navigates the repressive society governed by Big Brother (Tom Hardy) and gets into a relationship with colleague Julia (Cynthia Erivo).
There have been many interpretations of 1984, but this latest podcast makes for a worthwhile way to reexamine what is for many Orwell’s finest work National Trust Podcast
Spanning across history, nature and adventure, the National Trust Podcast does a great job of getting to the heart of a story, while taking listeners on uplifting adventures across the UK.
Now in its eighth series, with several accolades under its belt, such as the British Podcast Awards, host and curator James Grasby kicks things off with an episode exploring the life of a mysterious gang from the 1930s, called Ferguson’s Gang.
For the most part, they had the entire nation eagerly following their exploits. But as you continue to listen to the episode – which is well produced – it becomes clearer that something wasn’t right.
“We hope listeners will feel like they are there with us in these rich and varied locations,” said senior podcast producer, Michelle Douglass at the National Trust.
“We hear personal and passionate tales from individuals, in the places that are special to them and that gives us a really rich connection that helps bring depth to our storytelling.”