First-rate police drama that calls all the shots
No one says “once upon a time” like Jed Mercurio, the creator of
Line of Duty. The drama about policing the police is back for a third series, and it opens once more with a pulsating sequence which wastes no time yanking you to the very edge of your sofa. A cornered villain is fatally shot by a policeman who asks his colleagues to cover for him. The title
credits are barely off the screen before anti-corruption unit AC12 have smelt a putrefying rat.
Line of Duty’s guest role of a copper under investigation is currently the meatiest opportunity in British police procedurals. First there was Lennie James as a star detective on the take, then Keeley Hawes as a miserable penpushing singleton up to her armpits in debt. This time it’s Daniel Mays as Sergeant Danny Waldron, an intriguingly vulnerable thug whose narrative arc will, on this evidence, be all about the dark side of motivation.
Years of incarnating unstable spivs in the plays of Pinter and Marber have readied Mays for the challenge. His face is a mess of contradictions: a surly punchbag, all lip curls and wet eyes, fear and hurt never far below a brittle veneer of swagger. “I’m under no illusions of a happy ending,” he says, and nor should viewers be. It’s a compelling performance, pitched between unsubtle and unfathomable, seen to best effect in one of those nailbiting interrogations where Mercurio simply refuses to shout “cut”.
There, a familiar trio of regulars awaits: Adrian Dunbar’s avuncular Ulsterman Superintendent Ted Hastings, Martin Compston’s runty perma-frowning cockney DS Steve Arnott and Craig Parkinson as shifty Brummie DI Matthew “Dot” Cotton. Meanwhile Vicky McClure’s laser-eyed DC Kate Fleming is on standby to sniff about under cover.
As ever the details are minutely observed: Mercurio knows precisely how the police fill out forms to take possession of a lethal weapon. And there are a lot of forms to sign in this opening episode, which closes with a development every bit as blindsiding as nation’s sweetheart Jessica Raine being lobbed out of a top-floor window in series two. You know where you are with Line
of Duty: blindfolded and speeding round a labyrinth. Strap in.
The guest role of a copper under investigation is currently the meatiest opportunity in British police procedurals