imposed upon the
Past
|| Low tide on
the river. The Last Detective staggers over the fresh mud in an industrial
bivouac to interview an associate of the victim as a welder works in the shadow
of a listing boat... it could be a painting by L.S. Lowry but it isn't. Or: A
flooded quarry on the Welsh border. The Last Detective stands on the smooth
rocks watching a police diver search the green water... this could be a
painting by David Hockney but it isn't. Or: A comedian stands like a carnival
doll in the footlights playing to his harem in a seedy Willesden social club,
drinks a glass of wine laced with rat poison, drops dead on the stage... it
could be a painting by Francis Bacon but it isn't. These understated but
fascinating visuals belong to Dangerous Davies, The Last Detective (the latest
incarnation), an ITV series created in 2002/3 to fill the family hours just
after sundown on a winter evening.
Family viewing? You
have to wonder, because while the gratuitous violence is mostly off-camera, and
there is occasional buffoonery, make no mistake, this is adult drama. The Last
Detective was first filmed in 1981 as a single drama, and this updated series
retells the same story in the pilot episode. Although it's all in color, the
documentary finesse of the locations gives the action a neo-realist feel, so
that it looks like a sociological expose worthy of Vittorio de Sica.
True, the stories
unfold in the usual way as a series of interviews with witnesses and suspects,
but there's something going down here beyond mere novelty. A sense of Time is
in the faces of the characters, as if Dangerous Davies (Peter Davison) is
interviewing the complete cast of British society, where everyone is either a
suspect or a witness or a squealer.
Everyone has a tragic
flaw, a secret, and has probably murdered someone somewhere sometime. It's a
society where the Present is imposed upon the Past like another coat of paint,
an existential concealment staged in the endless camouflage of shabby buildings
and second hand light. It seems England is a memory obscured by the present. An
abandoned horse stands on the pavement as if the suburb has just materialized,
supplanted its pasture... a pram rises from the dirty waters of the canal... a
porno vid is found in a drawer... and the victims: bodies in the garden, the
trash heap, the canal, the railway tracks... a secret chamber below the
greenhouse... burning studios and exploding cars, women who are mad, bad, and
dangerous to know. And the lead character is afflicted by the romantic memory
of his marriage and its failure in the present, as if he's trying to recover
the way it was once in sleepy old middle class Albion.
the last
Englishman
Despite his handle as
"The Last Detective" (a cynical witticism by his boss: "You're the Last
Detective, Dangerous... the last one I'd ever think of.") Dangerous Davies is
actually The Last Englishman. He prefers a pint rather than a Bud, an ironic
rebuttal rather than a reactive fist.
His composure is
dangerously obsolete, as are his values and his methods. "You're decent man in
an indecent time," says his pal Mod in the pilot episode. Here, the murder he
solves is a police crime -- a sex crime -- and he finds himself shunned for his
good work, and the real crime seems to be that he broke the collegial code, not
the mystery of a teenage girl murdered by a cop. He can't understand his wife's
sexual restlessness or the attitude of today's women in general, even though
women like him, give him tea and sandwiches... and the stripper with the boa
who lives on a barge probably gave him more. He's always working from the
bottom up, from the outside in. He's merely "Detective Constable", a bumbler
who's never made the grade, and yet at the end of the day it's the good old
yeoman fortitude of Dangerous Davies that solves the crime. The primary English
virtues of perseverance and fair play are written in his source code. Sympathy,
steadiness, suppression of self -- these codes predate the "Me Generation" yet
this is his generation. No malingering rebellion gone bad with middle-age, no
self-pity... he's just a humble servant of the people in a raincoat and a
station wagon that sometimes won't start, the Columbo of London N.W.
10.
a drifter with an
address
|| While In
North America the "buddy cop" script paradigm started with the Robert Culp/Bill
Cosby series I Spy (1965-68), it could be argued that it reaches back into the
Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories. It's certainly used a lot in recent UK TV
crime drama, such as Inspector Morse -- another English type facing
obsolescence -- which is set further up the Thames Valley from the west London
suburb of Willesden that D.C. Davies inhabits. Of course Davies' "mate" isn't a
cop -- he's a drifter with an address, a flat which he sometimes shares with
Davies when DD's wife or landlady won't have him around. He's on the dole,
occasionally takes ludicrous temp jobs which are more like acting gigs. Mod is
typical of his generation, unable to graduate to reality, full of paperback
ideas, educated and lazy, a gentle soul too nice to be called a loser, although
he loses frequently.
What is "Mod" short
for? "Modesty," says Dangerous to an old lady who asks. It certainly isn't
because he's a snappy dresser, a holdout from the "Mods" of sixties England,
although anything is possible, as we know nothing about his past. He likes
books, often has one on hand, such as a collection of Oscar Wilde. "I don't
care who he shagged," says Mod. "He wrote a bloody good essay." And when he and
Dangerous are mistaken for a homosexual couple on the canal towpath by a petty
criminal, Mod snaps back, "How dare you -- I was once engaged to Miss Galway
Bay."
Thus his Irish
pedigree is revealed, and Willesden does have its community of Irish
transplants, a movement that started seriously during WW II. So he's an Irish
dreamer, should be a writer himself, escape the curse of the leprechaun.
Sometimes DD discusses a case with him -- in the pub, the car, the park, on the
towpath, somewhere between the bricks & the trees, walking the big dog --
and more often than not Mod has some insight that proves useful. It might be
spotting a revealing imprint on an old photograph (as in "Lofty") or setting up
an association in DD's mind by an off-hand remark.
The crimes are almost
irrelevant in this series because the action is carried by the strength of the
principal characters and the documentary Willesden setting. Nothing unusual in
this, as it follows the tradition of the English murder mystery, which is more
like a game of Snakes and Ladders than a grim decoding of homicide. The crimes
are invariably indiscretions, never cold-blooded slayings such as the exotic
killings in CSI: Miami (Las Vegas, New York), for example. The mercy killing of
the Balkan war vet Frank Moore in "Towpaths of Glory" (episode 10) is as brutal
as it gets; the point of nihilism hasn't been reached.
However, the breaching
of the cultural fabric that allows British common sense to always triumph might
be on hand, as DD's colleagues seem to have surrendered to a xenophobic
cynicism as a matter of machismo or caste survivalism. An alert comes into the
station about a load of Chinese illegals being smuggled into Willesden but when
they stake out the dropoff, the operation is a bust. There are no illegals this
time.
Occasionally the
crimes act merely as a background to Dangerous' personal life, his problems
with Julie. The pilot episode pretty well lays it all out. Dangerous is in the
can washing his hands, a fellow detective at the urinal.
Barrett: Did I see you
walking your dog yesterday, Dangerous?
DD: You probably did.
Barrett: I
thought she had custody of the dog.
DD: She can't handle him.
Barrett:
Oh? What I heard was she can handle just about anything... no offence,
Dangerous.
DD: How can anyone take offence at you, Barrett?
Of course this cameo
nails the situation exactly. DD collects his dog like a father getting visiting
rights to his kid just as an airline pilot arrives at the house to spend the
evening with Julie. As they pass on the path DD's restraint is old school
middle class England, the sort of Anglican fortitude that drove a generation of
missionaries into Africa without complaint. No punch outs here, no head butt,
no knee to the groin or dog attack, just some ironic remark... as if he
recognizes this latest rival to be just another victim like himself. A decent
man in an indecent world indeed.
the dreamy madness
of the living
|| As body
dramas go, The Last Detective goes light on the dead, heavy on the living.
Corpses are seldom figurative art studies and when they are, there are no
lingering photographic autopsies (well, one maybe... the has-been rocker Teddy
O'Connor in "Three Steps To Hendon"). The dreamy madness of the living is the
real subject. In "Dangerous by Moonlight" an old terminal ballroom dancer
refuses to believe her husband is missing, but rather on a philandering
vacation, and dies happily unaware that she killed him during a drunken
squabble. In "Lofty" a successful female executive starts an impulsive affair
with a young married employee who accidentally causes the drowning death of an
old vagrant war vet and in turn is killed in an auto accident while talking on
his cell phone to his lover. A cop lives the last 20 years of his working life
devoted to a crippled wife even though he killed a teenage girl in a fit of
sexual madness... the various lovers of a murdered comedian delude themselves
as to his fidelity and talent... a female gardener and man-hater lives in art
and dangerous obsession... a kindly old violin master kills in order to possess
a classic instrument, etcetera.
The various episodes
are a study of loneliness and involuntary disengagement. The context is
multi-cultural, a society where even the natives seem like foreigners. Black
cops & street criminals, European au pairs & Balkan refugees, gypsies,
Hong Kong exiles & Indian exotics, uptown cockneys & Yorkshire bikers,
they all look like passengers who wandered out of Heathrow and got lost in
Willesden. It's the ebb tide of the colonial experience, a patriation of
collaborators and victims, and a multi-cultural reinvention within the European
Union. It's no longer the BBC, it's the BBC World.
DD's boss is
Detective Inspector Ray Aspinall (Rob Spendlove), a beautiful study of the
functioning alcoholic. He carries a flask in his pocket, keeps a 26er in his
filing cabinet, and is often the only guy at the bar in the police club. Tall
and nicotine thin, he carries his darkness well, even when hung over and fixing
himself a bromo & milk. He might have fits of sarcasm, he might be
occasionally insulting, but he is always fair. His subordinates respect him
regardless and none more so than Dangerous. It's a beautiful thing to watch how
the bond between the two men develops within the episodes, goes from no
confidence to brotherly love. By episode 11, "Three Steps To Hendon" (story of
the murdered rock star), the reversal is almost complete; Aspinall says he's
been asked to head up a new regional squad outside London, suggests that DD
comes with him as his "bagman".
A promotion? Dangerous
checks around, finds out something is wrong. He sees Aspinall in his office
says, "Guv... don't do it, it's a setup... they can't get the man they want, so
they're putting in a temp... if you take the job, they'll get rid of you." The
revelation hits the Inspector like a bullet; he stares silently at DD, then
pulls a whiskey bottle from a drawer in his desk, pours a shot. So much for
going tee total. DD throws up his hands, exits. Stress, politics, the shaft.
Last exit from Willesden is a vertical rise to the bottom.
By the next episode,
"Willesden Confidential" (12), the circle closes. A boozed up Aspinall loses a
confidential police file in a pub, and Dangerous offers to take the fall
"because I'm never gonna get promoted now, am I?" So there it is, Dangerous
Davies, the quintessential foot-soldier who makes the sacrifice, "falls on the
grenade" to protect his boss. Respect? A tongue lashing from a female
superintendent doesn't help, but he gets respect where it matters, from his
friends and colleagues.
Iago &
Iago
Detectives Pimlott
and Barrett are always standing around like conspirators in a Renaissance
revenge tragedy... Iago & Iago. Wise guys in suits drinking Buds. Pimlott
(Charles de'Ath) is a sort of cockney dandy, always spiffed out in a new suit
& tie, maybe the latest overcoat. His car is new, good for extra mileage
claims. Because he's a Detective Sergeant, he outranks DD, and is always quick
to "take the piss" out of him with a nasty little game or taunt. Like so many
in police forces everywhere, Pimlott could easily be mistaken for a hoodlum,
although he's nowhere near as macho as he puts out. His day of reckoning comes
early in the series when he gets stabbed by the crazy female stalker in
"Tricia" (episode 3); the irony here is that she is trying to get Davies. When
DD visits him in hospital, Pimlott says, "What are you here for? You don't even
like me." DD looks away, smiles, says, "No, I don't." DD doesn't hold grudges,
is loyal to his unit, and things between him and Pimlott aren't quite so rude
thereafter.
Yet this near-death
experience doesn't completely divest Pimlott of his sexist bully persona when
interviewing women, and there is one memorable scene where he gets slapped by
the widow of the victim when he moves in a bit too close and personal. "What
are you?" she snarls. "A tit man? Arse, leg, what?"
D.C. Darren Barrett:
he has very few lines, communicates mostly in the body language of smirks and
quizzical glances. He could be a poster on the wall, a piece of cultural
sub-text... which isn't a criticism, as this is how the producers want him
played. Barrett at his desk, Dangerous at his. He's like a bored teacher
watching his delinquent student writing an essay in detention, both victims of
a mutual contempt. He's an effective prop, although as an acting gig, it's
money fer nuthin', yer chicks fer free.
between the
dots
Julie (Emma Amos). "I
can still remember the first time I saw her," says Dangerous (mistily). She's a
very common type these days, in many western countries, part of the first
generation of women to be liberated by the birth control pill. There's no
analysis of her confusion here: she just is. Between the dots we recognize that
the big St. Bernard dog is a substitute in a childless marriage now beached in
middle age. A bit plump, lynx eyes & rich mouth like a Madame. She still
has her erotic potential, although her best days are behind her. Clearly she's
the one who called it quits -- she has the house, the dog, the vague agenda.
And her husband's
crime, if any? Being a bumbling loser who can't get promoted? Lousy in the sack
or just a push-over, he who never slaps back? While she can date other men,
whenever she suspects another lady is interested in Dangerous, she gets
jealous. A pilot, an oil rig diver, a pandiculating executive... these
substitutes, these stand-ins, are invariably gentle souls like Dangerous,
Englishmen drifting through middle age like clergymen without a church. Only
the dog collar remains -- invisible, perhaps, but it's there, a shackle to
some, a life-belt to others. Their world has become a dumpster culture (they
call them skips), a modulating era of the continuous discard. No wonder murder
is viewed as just another form of divorce.
Of course you want
Julie & Dangerous to reconcile, and as the series progresses Dangerous
eventually makes his way back into her bed. There are many hiccups along the
way -- the cell phone interruptions, the blundered remarks, the fake
rendezvous... well, they even meet in a local pub, play it as a pickup between
two strangers, but within minutes they argue, split. "Ah the games people
play," sighs Mod somewhere, sometime when discussing one of DD's cases. In this
sense, the biggest mystery in the series is the slow flying death of DD's
marriage.
Dangerous: (choked) So
we've had three years of foreplay leading precisely nowhere.
Julie: I just
want life to sweep me off my feet.
Does it? Perhaps.
Watch "Willesden Confidential".
The series is laced
with nostalgia. All the characters carry their past like a b & w
photograph, and for most it was taken in the seventies. The target audience for
this show is definitely those in middle age or investigating retirement. The
best episodes? They're all good, although "Lofty" with its brilliant cameo of
an old vagrant played by the veteran actor Norman Wisdom stands out. His
character has a clever back story that reaches into a Nazi prison camp and an
apparent hit list, although his fate turns out to be far less glorious &
disconnected from the strange German beauty whose secret drives the action. And
Dangerous has a romance of sorts with another lost soul like himself, a slim
social worker who disappears back to Trinidad to find her son and husband
before we find out if indeed love has come again. Great plot, great characters,
and the Willesden locations refine the vibe. Written by Richard Harris,
directed by Matthew Evans.
"Tricia" (3) is also
good, although some will say the featured character is just a British reprise
of Glen Close as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987); of course anyone who
has worked downtown or in a university in the last 30 years will know that
Tricia (Eleanor David) is an all too common type, the anti-male harridan
calling herself a victim, longing for love, a romantic stalker on the edge of
psychosis. Bad attitude, dumb ideology? Here the character is realistically
shown transferring her obsession to the sympathetic Dangerous. Political
correction 101. Written by Richard Harris, directed by Pip Broughton.
In The Last
Detective, contemporaneity is sustained by its clear-view study of female and
male confusion. You want strange? Try getting a read on the mysterious widow
(Susan Vidler) in "Christine" (5), who rattles the cages of all the boys in the
precinct. Nostalgia is working hard on the hearts and minds in "Three Steps To
Hendon" (11), which deals with the suspicious death of Teddy O'Connor, the lead
singer of the defunct pop band The Overnight Sensations. His demise? The usual
vomit choke after a night of dissipation in a Willesden pub. This story touches
on a couple of pattern-areas of male irresponsibility, i.e. the callous sexual
exploitation of young girls and boys. A groupie commits suicide and her friend
seeks revenge... and a young drummer is sexually violated by a creepy manager
known as Mr. Wonder... "the entry fee" to the world of glamour. There's a lot
of cynicism in this drama, so it will be of no consolation to the target
audience. So while the Last Detective is mostly a Comedy of Manners, it does
have some of the same grim socio-psychological reality that made
Cracker the
greatest detective series of the nineties.
What next? A
dead-ringer for Lady Diana Spencer shows up in Willesden? Death is always a
murder mystery, even if the facts suggest otherwise.
© LR
8/07
Mcourt
|
writers: Richard Harris, Michael Atkins, Russell Lewis, Tim Vaughan |
directors: Pip Broughton, Moira Armstrong, Matthew Evans, Rick Hurran,
Ferdinand Fairfax, Douglas MacKinnon, Gavin Millar | dir. of photog: James
Aspinall, Kevin Rudge | edt. David Head, Paul Garrick, Paul Richards et al |
music: Rupert Gregson-Williams | prod. by Julie Clark, Julie Keir, Robbie
Sandison