Review
The week in TV: Truelove; Mr Bates vs the Post Office / REVIEW
Old friends make a pact in a pithy euthanasia
thriller; finally, the Post Office scandal gets the attention it deserves; more
backstabbers gather at the castle; and from the outback to Ireland with Jamie
Dornan
Barbara Ellen
Sun 7 Jan 2024 09.30 GMT
Few things
are more difficult to portray than ordinary stubborn decency, but Toby Jones
aces it
A couple of
episodes in, developments become somewhat unrealistic, and it’s unclear how
deeply Truelove intends to delve into the sensitive, multifaceted dilemmas of
assisted dying. Still, the concept is intriguing – a pithy thriller about
euthanasia – and the small screen is lit up with grey power. It feels almost
radical to see a predominantly older cast hogging all the airtime.
Try getting
through the ITV’s four-part drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office without
levitating off your sofa cushions in fury. Written by Gwyneth Hughes, it’s the
two decades-spanning story of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in
British history. Detailed very briefly: more than 700 Post Office branch
managers across the country were wrongly blamed for vast, unexplained losses
caused by the PO’s faulty new Horizon computer system, each of them told they
were alone in experiencing any problems. They were harassed into making up
crippling deficits out of their own pockets, sacked, taken to court, sometimes
imprisoned, their reputations, finances and mental health left in ruins. Some
people took their own lives.
The drama
focuses on Alan Bates (Toby Jones), a subpostmaster fired for refusing to
comply with Post Office diktats, who set about proving the innocence of
colleagues like him. Few things are more difficult to portray than ordinary
stubborn decency, but Jones aces it. The same is true of Julie Hesmondhalgh, as
Bates’s stoically supportive partner, Suzanne. In fact, the entire cast is
superb, a veritable who’s who of British talent, whether portraying anguished
Post Office workers (Monica Dolan, Will Mellor), those who helped them (Ian
Hart, Alex Jennings), or PO head honchos (Lia Williams, Katherine Kelly).
In this
intricate story (technical bugs, remote access, cover-ups), even the hard-won
court victory that enabled people to quash unfair convictions proves messy.
After legal costs, the compensation is inadequate, and some Post Office victims
still haven’t received payouts. Dramatically speaking, the series suffers from
some overzealous exposition: even accounting for the complexity, it feels at
times like being pounded by gigantic dialogue boulders of information. Even so,
this is a staunch David and Goliath homage to quiet fortitude triumphing over
corporate chicanery, and well worth anyone’s time.
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