When Jimmy McGovern gets off his soapbox this is a brutal and devastating drama
Jimmy McGovern's latest drama, *Common* (BBC1, Sunday), is about the controversial concept of joint enterprise murder. The characters say those three words over and over again, just so we know what we're supposed to be learning about. "It's about getting working-class scum off our streets," screams Game of Thrones' Michelle Fairley, playing the mother of a man accused under the law, in what may be the most McGovern-ish line ever uttered. Then, instructing us viewers as much as the character to which she is talking, she adds: "Put it into your laptop and see what you get."
This is bleak, powerful drama thick with political intent, which occasionally robs it of its quality. Johnjo, a 17-year-old haemophiliac who wants to impress his big brother's friends, gives them a lift to the pizza shop (it was filmed in Southport, though the setting is never mentioned). He thinks they are going to pick up food. In fact, they are there to attack the "sworn enemy" of one of the gang until a bystander makes the fatal mistake of looking at one of them the wrong way. Though we know this crime has taken place from the beginning, it takes almost the full 90-minute running time for its pathetic futility to be revealed in a flashback. "Do you think I'm shit?" sneers the perpetrator, Kieran (Andrew Ellis). His victim's denial is all he needs to stick the knife in.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
Jimmy McGovern's latest drama, *Common* (BBC1, Sunday), is about the controversial concept of joint enterprise murder. The characters say those three words over and over again, just so we know what we're supposed to be learning about. "It's about getting working-class scum off our streets," screams Game of Thrones' Michelle Fairley, playing the mother of a man accused under the law, in what may be the most McGovern-ish line ever uttered. Then, instructing us viewers as much as the character to which she is talking, she adds: "Put it into your laptop and see what you get."
This is bleak, powerful drama thick with political intent, which occasionally robs it of its quality. Johnjo, a 17-year-old haemophiliac who wants to impress his big brother's friends, gives them a lift to the pizza shop (it was filmed in Southport, though the setting is never mentioned). He thinks they are going to pick up food. In fact, they are there to attack the "sworn enemy" of one of the gang until a bystander makes the fatal mistake of looking at one of them the wrong way. Though we know this crime has taken place from the beginning, it takes almost the full 90-minute running time for its pathetic futility to be revealed in a flashback. "Do you think I'm shit?" sneers the perpetrator, Kieran (Andrew Ellis). His victim's denial is all he needs to stick the knife in.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.