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WHEN he g i ve s talks to aspiring television writers, Paul Abbott — a Coronation Street graduate — warns against taking a job in soaps. It’s well paid, he will t el l them, you’ll get comfortable, and you won’t do the writing you want to do.
Abbott, of course, transcended his origins long ago, though there is an argument that (the faintly autobiographical) Shameless took the architecture of soap and remodelled it into a more interesting shape. State of Play proved that Abbott was al s o capable of knife-edge drama. His latest project, (All 4), is quite extraordinary because it surpasses the expectations of the police procedural while also delivering drama in Abbott’s signature style. It’s quietly revolutionary but feels entirely natural.
Much has been written about how No Offence challenges political correctness, and is rude, crude and filthily funny. It does, and is, but it feels odd to label as “black comedy” a drama in which the police are investigating the murder of children with Down’s syndrome. In fact, the show observes the rules of the cop drama but feels different because Abbott delivers such beautifully rounded characters without resorting to stereotype.
The immediate star is Joanna S c a nl a n’s det e c t ive i ns pec t or Viv Deering. She is the show’s matriarch, a no-nonsense, straight-talking cop who is also capable of being gloriously inappropriate. Some of the things she says are best not repeated before the watershed but they’re also entirely believable in the context.
S c a nl a n i s g re a t , a nd sh e ’s a bly supported by Elaine Cassidy, as DC Dinah Kowalska, a single (Polish) mum who is denied promotion despite her obvious talent, and Alexandra Roach as DS Joy Frears, who lacks confidence but will likely come good in the end.
Abbott is generous with his jokes. He gives the best line to a junkie girl who is struggling to remember which airline her parents have absconded on. Was it Ryanair or EasyJet? “EasyJet,” the girl says, “cos me dad’s phobic about trumpets since Afghanistan.”