Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 81/2/10
Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Alan Cordiner, Pixie Davies, Leemore Morrett Jnr, Diane Morgan.
It is the 21st Century equivalent of throwing yourself out of the window of a tall office block after wiping millions off the value of shares in the United States, the way of suicide compared to the office boredom and placing the stapler over the tongue ready to make sure you feel something, anything, to let the pain remind you are still alive…as Ian asks his colleague, is it possible to actually die of boredom?
To follow on from the stunning prequel that kick started season two of Utopia was going to be a tall ask but it didn’t take long to warm up the juices left by the questions at the end of season one and to get pulled further into the conspiracy in which will see the Human Race’s population over time reduced down 500 million and the nagging question of just who is who’s side?
For the makers of Utopia to have made a prequel and to have the cast and back story perfectly placed, so much more makes sense, especially the disposition of Arby, played by the superb Neil Maskell, the shuffling psychotic assassin who has been used by all but who now seems to have seen something else, who has seen through the lie and has his own agenda; an agenda that now wants to save the lives of Ian and Becky and go up against the Milner, for now at least.
As the race to vaccinate humanity, to make the overwhelming majority of people on the planet sterile, continues in earnest, the daughter of the scientist has been tortured and beaten, yet the glint in her eye, like her brother Arby has been re-ignited. Fiona O’ Shaughnessy is a tremendous asset to the story, the torment her character faces is etched unnervingly over her face and she captures the idea of brutal mistreatment so easily that that in itself is enough to know that this programme is special. It’s superbly filmed and with a plot so maddeningly plausible that makes actors such as Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Geraldine James, Alistair Petrie and Neil Maskell stand out for their incredible portrayal.
Paradise is only a vaccine away, it’s enough to make you wonder what goes in all the medicines and why at times it seems that Governments are so keen to immunise all.
Utopia continues next Tuesday.
Ian D. Hall