Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Emilia Jones, Steven Robertson, Sacha Dhawan, Jennifer Hennersey, Emil Hostina, David Calder, Ansu Kabin, Bill Nash, John Voce.
It might take Channel 4 a decade or more to get involved with another story-line as riveting as Utopia has been for the last two series, if it does it will be well worth the wait, for Utopia has been so powerful, so seismic in its delivery that it stands shoulder to shoulder with other titans that went before it, such as Black Mirror and A Very British Coup. .
Utopia has been looked upon as a dream, a state in which humanity to revel in the grace closest to the biblical ideal of The Garden of Eden but with all the trappings that the modern age can bestow. Since Sir Thomas More wrote about it, arguably with one eye on appeasing the king and with his own religious doctrine firmly asserting all his bias, Utopia has been an unattainable dream. It is mixed up with the idea of control as perhaps the character who has developed most since the first episode, Wilson Wilson, played by the blossoming talent of Adel Akhtar, suggests, Utopia is achievable with control. What better way to control a population than by fear and scaremongering.
Taking over the position of Mr. Rabbit from the now deceased Milner has opened Wilson’s eye to the prospect of global control and his now fearsome way of asserting that control has meant that this fascinating series will get another load of episodes in which to really get beneath the belly of the beast, the Hydra-like monster that is able to kill a member of The Cabinet just through appeasing his greed, who can happily kill its own genocidal assassins just to stop a disease from going too far, a beast that looks completely unstoppable.
Throughout both series the tension between some of the characters has been undeniably excellent and in Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt and Oliver Woollford the audience have had some of the greatest moments in Channel 4’s 30 plus year’s history.
A series which has reached deep into the psyche and which has asked many uncomfortable questions, which has seen the ease in which a viewer can be misled down a path that they, in the cold light of day, might find themselves being horrified at their reply. For just how do you solve the ever growing cycle of humanity’s inhumanity to man, the cycle of war, over population and ever dwindling resources? Is it really through such terrible actions or is it through complete control, freedom it seems in Utopia, is not even an option.
Ian D. Hall