Watch TV with Paul Flynn
On Sunday night, DS Kate Fleming, the proper brains behind police anti-corruption unit AC-12, will grace our TV screens as Line Of Duty comes to its climactic, nervejangling end. Fleming is an unusual character in police procedurals. Her wardrobe is off-the-peg high street. We know next to nothing of her private life. And yet we love her for one very specific reason: because she is played by Vicky Mcclure.
Vicky first appeared in the mid-’00s, as a graduate of the Nottingham TV Workshop, one of the few free resources for regional, working-class young actors. She starred in Shane Meadows’ exceptional A Room For Romeo Brass. Madonna cast her in Filth And Wisdom because of it. Vicky looked genuinely baffled when she was awarded her BAFTA for playing surly Lol in another Meadows’ masterpiece, This Is England. She has since become part of the British furniture, an actor for whom we reserve special warmth.
This week, Vicky adds another string to her exceptional bow with Our Dementia Choir. Inspired by the Alzheimer’s her own grandma suffered, she roams her local Nottingham neighbourhood to bring a bit of joy to families going through the same. It’s such a brilliantly Vicky project that, though filmed like a Pride of Britain awards package, there are touches of pathos, gentleness and absurd black humour, so you can imagine the king of bleak, Meadows himself, nodding approvingly during it, while wiping away a stray, manly tear.
Vicky’s natural gift is raw, unsentimental empathy. Little edits in the assemblage of the choir and the backstories of its amazing choristers have more in common with Caroline Aherne than Gareth Malone. The two-part show is educational, warm and funny, a beautiful communion of music and illness. In Britain, 850,000 people suffer from dementia. It feels like Vicky’s made it for each one individually. Hearing joyful noise from people in pain, alleviated for a moment of release, is balm for the soul. So, watch Vicky in Line Of Duty. Love her for it. But do not miss My Dementia Choir. It’s a timely reminder, in a political climate filled with venal self-interest and prejudice, that kindness and healing can be at our core. If this is no longer England, it may yet be again. Thursday, 8pm, BBC One