BLACKOUT

BBC1 3 PART DRAMA

FEATURING Christopher Eccleston (Daniel De Moyes) Previous Roles Dr Who,Heroes,
Dirvla Kirwan (Alex Demoyes) Ballykssangel, Injustic
Ewen Bremner (Jerry Durrans) Trainspotting,
David Hayman(Henry Pulis)
Andrew Scott (Detective Dalien Bevan) Sherlock
       

Christopher Eccleston plays the role of a corrupt coucillor with an alcohol problem who sells information about council tenders to a businessman to ensure he gets the contract. However something goes wrong and an argument ensues. In the next scene De Moyes wakes from a drunken blackout to find that he is covered in blood. When he gets to a council meeting he discovers that the man he met in a dark alley the night before is now in hospital unconscious. He now begins to get flashbacks and realises that he attacked the businessman (Henry Pulis).

De Moyes relationship with his wife is also on unsteady ground and most scenes featuring the two are tense . The whole series is dark and edgy, and as the story develops De Moyes finds himself more out of control. Finding himself in need of advice he goes to see his sister Lucy played by Lyndsey Marshal (Being Human, Titanic TV mini-series) who is a lawyer. Her current case involves armed drug gangs, and as she is standing talking with her brother an assassination is attempted on her but brother Daniel jumps in front of her and takes the bullet. As he recovers in Hospital his sister brings Jerry Durrans to see him. Durrans is a fellow councillor who sees an opportunity to get De Moyes elected as Mayor. Now the plot thickens.

The lead character finds out that Pulis died in hospital so now he has a murder to cover up. This does not prevent him from standing as Mayor and winning the election. At this point he is still under the delusion that one man can make a difference, so when the cleaning contract is next discussed he suggests creating a workers collective that would run the company. This is seen by the other council members as a pipe dream and Durrans has to take De Moyes aside to point out that he works for a company who will get the councils business and De Moyes will help because they know he murdered Pulis. This means that our hero has to do a complete turn-around on his position in the next meeting, announcing that Durrans will head a committee looking in to the company's offer.

De Moyes's social juggling now gets out of hand: he battles against his urge to drink, his girlfriend Sylvie, who he had sex with in an alley prior to meeting and killing Pulis saw him do it. So did a drunk. He now has two people to keep quiet. To add another twist, a police detective is putting the pieces together and he just so happens to be Sylvies ex-husband. Someone tries to kill him to protect the Mayor, at which point both he and De Moyes realise just how deep the corruption goes.
The finale sees De Moyes stand in front of the press to confess, in order to bring all the guilty parties to justice.

This was a well put together drama with an excellent cast, and for the most part the writing is believable. It did leave me wondering: " is this what goes on in our local councils?" It is not difficult to accept that it may, given that we have learned in recent years of MP's committing fraud with their expenses claims and bankers, who are at the very core of our economic system have been involved in fixing the LIBOR rate and losing our pension money by hedge betting on the stock exchange, ripping us off with PPI insurance and lending money to people that they knew couldn't afford to pay it back, therefore causing a recession.

Is there a moral to this tale though? Is the writer saying that power does corrupt, and will corrupt anyone that takes a position of responsibility, or is this a simple tale of an individual making some bad choices? Is the system to blame or is it those that people it? Life, it seems these days is based on shady underhand deals, privilege and contacts: the substance of the individual doesn't matter, all that matters is the perpetuation of the system. Perhaps the point is that we are all doing things that we don't want to do and don't know what to do instead, and faced with choices that we may think we are free to make we pick a card unaware that the deck has been stacked in the dealers favor.

Whatever the intended message this three part series was engrossing and for once I was actually looking forward to a program coming on, I can't remember when that last happened. It's a pity that it only had three parts, although on the plus side this does mean that there was no unnecessary padding out to make a full series. A good watch that deserves a repeat showing (it's not often that I say that, either!).