A very modern teen drama with an urgent message
Secondary school was a febrile affair when I was a student in the Nineties, but that was nothing compared to today’s world of smartphones and social media. There are several ways of addressing this in television drama. Sky Atlantic’s Euphoria went for – and got – hysteria and headlines with its heady, paranoia-inducing shock tactics, censor-baiting antics and a genuine edge of danger that overwhelmed its more contemplative moments.
The Hunting (Channel 5) took a more insidiously unsettling approach. This gripping Adelaide-set miniseries favoured the drip-drip promise of looming disaster as two girls – bolshie Zoe (Luca Sardelis) and diligent Amandip (Kavitha Anandasivam) – found intimate images of them had been shared without their consent. Zoe had engaged in webcam sex with entitled, controlling Andy (Alex Cusack) before, resentful of her high profile and refusal to attend a party with him, he exploited her trust and posted a shot on a grubby local forum where boys commented on explicit images of local girls. Amandip, sweetly and mutually besotted with quiet, self-effacing Nassim (Yazeed Daher), had taken a nude selfie which Nassim was then coerced into sharing in order to preserve a precarious, one-sided friendship with Andy. It too wound up on the forum.
But individuals are products of their environments, so parenting and education were also mired in the ethical swamp. Amandip kicked against her conservative Punjabi parents, Zoe’s mothers were casual and open about sex, Nassim’s father was sympathetic but starting to struggle on his own, and Andy was crumbling under his parents’ high expectations, already reflecting the misogynist attitudes of his father. The school, meanwhile, rather than reconsider outdated policies, chose to preach abstinence in lessons on consent.
There were no right or wrong answers, no heroes or villains, just teenagers going through adolescence, lacking the life experience to heed the potential consequences of their actions. The Hunting implicated us all in not doing enough to help children floundering in tech, peer pressure and shifting societal sands, as girls take unapologetic ownership of their sexuality and boys wrestle with their new status in a world that has long drilled certain behaviours into them. Neither seeking to lecture a younger audience nor put the frighteners on older viewers, the opening episode delivered tense, sexually charged but responsible drama, reflecting urgent contemporary concerns and showcasing a young cast well up to the difficult material.
The crime itself has always been secondary to its human impact for Jeff Pope, and in A Confession (ITV) the ripple effects of Christopher Halliwell’s actions, and the police response, threatened to engulf everyone. Steve Fulcher (Martin Freeman), suspended while facing two charges of gross misconduct, was escorted from the building by police. Humiliated in front of family and colleagues, he retreated into his shell.
The police top brass switched steadfast support for mealy-mouthed platitudes as Fulcher argued, before the IPCC, that Sian O’callaghan’s right to life overrode Halliwell’s right to silence. His impeccable record earned a final warning rather than instant dismissal, but it was the most reluctant of concessions. Fulcher’s lowly new standing was clarified when he was assigned management of the “Bobby Van”, a very minor community initiative. His resignation soon followed.
In the meantime, a drifting, haunted Elaine Pickford (Siobhan Finneran) struggled to move on with her life, while Karen Edwards (Imelda Staunton, demonstrating there is nothing more formidable than an Imelda Staunton character on a moral crusade) worked through her grief and anger by championing Fulcher and petitioning (unsuccessfully) for a change in laws regarding policing practice that no longer felt fit for purpose.
The pacing was, for once, a touch off, the story a little more procedural than previous weeks, but this was still exceptional television. The grief and emotional gut punches of earlier episodes were replaced by outrage at the treatment of a real-life dramatic cliché: the maverick who got results.
Were the police vindictive in their pursuit of Fulcher? Was the late discovery of crucial evidence timed to give them a useful PR boost when under fire? Was John Godden (Christopher Fulford) exorcising his own guilt for neglecting his daughter in supporting them? Jeff Pope’s brilliance was to let us make our minds up while leaving little doubt where he stood.
The Hunting ★★★★ A Confession ★★★★