Accused (2010)

My last post was my 100th, don't you know?* I wish I'd noticed at the time, maybe I'd have put up a banner, a few balloons. As it is, this is my 101st, so I should put something I don't particularly like.

Unfortunately I want to write about Accused, the new Jimmy McGovern series on the BBC and it's fantastic.

Like The Street it consists of self-contained stories about ordinary people facing terrible circumstances. They're told with great heart and a masterful manipulation of tension. The fact that you know the protagonist is going to end up in the dock creates oodles of dramatic irony and suspense as you wait for the action which will get them "accused".

For instance, in the first episode Christopher Eccleston's character continually commits acts which could potentially see him convicted so you're constantly waiting for the boot to drop. It's absolutely tragic, then, when he is found guilty of the one crime he didn't commit, the whole thing a wages of sin deal.

The fact that Christopher Eccleston is in it gives a clue that all the acting is first rate, and familiar faces crop up everywhere. I even saw an actor I know, whose showreel I cut just before summer (it was very thrilling).

It's also shot very, very well. Flawlessly, really, aside from a slightly unpleasant piece of day-for-night in episode two but it's forgivable given the quality of the rest. (And as production class has taught us, scheduling is bloody hard, night shoots doubly so.)

So if you're not watching the new series get thee to the iPlayer and rectify the situation.



*I'm counting Blogger here, not Mahara