Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Simon Hubbard, Nicholas Woodeson, Lesley Nicol, Mark Aiken, Ashleigh Armstrong, Emily Atkinson, Bryony Corrigan, Jonathan Cullen, Jason Done, Ben Fiske, Suzy Kane, Patsy Lowe, Deidre Mullins, Georgia Nicholson, Derek Riddell, Annabel Scholey, Richard Shanks.
The stench of corporate corruption is not a new, it is perhaps not even fashionable to look to hard into it when thousands of jobs are stake; however not a single penny of hush money should ever be paid, to the even more corrupt or to the victims of the abuse perpetrated in the name of profit and business. For Inspector George Gently the 60s may be coming to a close but the chance to Breathe in the Air and bring the corrupted to book is never a closed chapter.
It is in the very air that we breathe that such things are born and for Gently and Detective Sergeant Bacchus, the air both in the community and inside the force is becoming heated. In the poorer towns of the North East where unemployment has always been a major issue, a job, despite its risk to health, even unknowingly, is one to at least hold on to.
When the body of well respected local G.P. turns up in a lonely spot and with suicide being the most likely cause of death, only one man’s instincts say otherwise and with the soon to be promoted Bacchus and W.P.C. Rachel Coles, sniffing around corporate manslaughter and culpability might just be the last things they ever investigate on the force.
With Nicholas Woodeson joining the cast as the man ravaged by Emphysema and whose daughter died at the age of 15 due to having played with asbestos with Rachel Coles, he brought true integrity to a part that required the same gravitas that Martin Shaw brings to each episode. To portray a sick man on screen or on the stage with purpose and truth takes great personal endeavour; it requires searching deep into the soul perhaps more so than any other part save the villain of the piece. Nicholas Woodeson in the last year has done both, in New Tricks and now in Inspector George Gently and in both he has captured the right frame of mind in which to really grasp the importance of such roles.
There is a particular gut wrenching anger in this episode, perhaps more so than any other of the last seven series, a story that has far reaching ramifications over 40 years later. Whether it is with the cancers associated with asbestos, mining and black lung, the paper mills or any other professions in which the safety of the workers was neglected by the owners, successive governments and the corruptible, the state of the nation’s health is still suffering for it today.
The undercurrent of corruption runs deep and for John Bacchus there may still be testing times ahead, even with his imminent promotion and new found respect for W.P.C. Coles. Such testing times are always in the air.
Ian D. Hall