Accused (Series 1).
Created by Jimmy McGovern.
Starring Warren Brown, Peter Capaldi, Mackenzie Crook, Christopher Eccleston, Naomie Harris, Andy Serkis, Ben Smith, Juliet Stevenson and Marc Warren.
SYNOPSIS:
Accused centres on ordinary people who end up in the dock. But should these men and women be there? Are they innocent or guilty or somewhere in between?
Originally aired in 2010 and released now to coincide with the arrival of second series, Accused was Jimmy McGovern’s first writing job since the cancellation of the much-missed BBC drama The Street. Prior to its untimely demise, The Street had always seemed to be a show that could run indefinitely. By containing each story within one hour long episode, and by focusing on a different resident of the titular street each time, McGovern’s writing was not constrained by the demands of long term character development and multi-episode story arcs. The show operated as a modern Play For Today – morality tales, focusing on ordinary people in desperate circumstances. But then, as so often happens with difficult drama, the funding dropped out, and The Street was no more.
Some comfort, then, may be taken from Accused, which takes that concept – one shot character piece – and presents it in a more specific framework. We see someone standing trial, and we see the crime they committed. By bypassing the perennials of TV crime drama – the police procedural, the mystery – Accused focuses instead on what leads these characters to commit their crimes (or not). It works. Just as McGovern’s own Cracker subverted the ‘whodunnit’ cliché of detective drama by showing the killer at the beginning, here we’re asked to consider the actions of the criminal, rather than root for the policemen pursuing them.
That isn’t to say Accused is revolutionary. It isn’t. To anyone who watched The Street, or even Cracker, the tone here is very similar. McGovern’s voice rings through his characters, and the tropes of his earlier work are present and correct. McGovern deals in the lives of flawed, yet principled characters, usually based in the council estates of Salford. And why not? Nobody presents the realities of working class life in Britain like Jimmy McGovern. A televisual counterpart to Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, he takes a part of British life so often misrepresented and sentimentalised, and he makes it real.
The casting is spot on – nobody plays beaten-down northern male like Chris Eccleston, and his performance provides an anchor in an otherwise convoluted first episode; Mackenzie Crook is brilliantly grotesque as a bullying Army Corporal, and Juliet Stevenson gut-wrenchingly realistic as a grieving mother. But it’s one Andy Serkis, perhaps not a man best known for his dramatic roles, whose turn as a taxi driver with an addictive personality stands out the most. Combining sympathetic gambling addict with besotted stalker, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen him do before, and something he should be doing more.
There are criticisms. Two episodes suffer from unlikely resolutions, and the Eccleston starring ‘Willy’s Story’ introduces so many moral dilemmas and red herrings that it often feels unfocused. Accused works best when it’s played simple. ‘Liam’s Story’ and ‘Frankie’s Story’ in particular possess greater focus, and therefore encourage greater emotional investment. There’s less of the humour, too, that flecked McGovern’s writing in The Street. Indeed, Accused is often so bleak it borders on unpleasant. But the strength of the writing and of the performances ensures that even when it falls short it’s gripping, and yes, entertaining drama.
Accused is remarkable television – remarkable already for being an example of contemporary British drama not reliant on period fetishism, but also for presenting us with imperfect, often immoral characters, and asking for our sympathy. Credit to the BBC for recognizing that regardless of ratings, British drama this good is a rarity that deserves a platform.
Jake Wardle
Originally published August 27, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
