Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Martin Freeman, MyAnna Buring, Adelayo Adedayo, Romi Hyland-Rylands, Mark Womack, Josh Finan, Emily Fairn, Philip Shaun McGuinness, Warren Brown, Ian Hart, Faye McKeever, Philip Barantini, Elizabeth Berrington, Christine Tremarco, David Loy, Rob Pomfret, Jude Cooper-Kelly, Kerrie Hayes, Dave Hart, Lois Cringle, James Nelson-Joyce, David Bradley, Karl Collins, Philip Whitchurch, Amaka Okafor, Marji Campi, Rita Tushingham, Maud Druine, Michael Starke, Jake Abraham, Paul Campion, Christian Waite, Victor McGuire, Kieran Urquhart, Sylvie Gatrill, Matthew Cottle, Dave Hill, Roy Brandon, Harry Burke, Pat Winker.
A universal truth ignored by the majority is that not everything you perceive in life is straight forward, it is not black and white, nor bound by shades of grey; it is in fact tied up in a jumble, a disarray of tales and half-truths surrounded by a deafening appreciation of colour seen through the eyes of a species programmed to recognise but a small percentage of them.
We insist on the black and white, it makes us comfortable to choose a side when the offer is one of binary concerns, and in life the choice between the apparent good and the obviously evil is such that the grey area in between the officers in blue and criminal fraternity in is barely registered by those with a supposed moral high ground and ignored by those who see themselves as permanent shadows, the creme de la creme of the darkness.
The Responder, created by the tremendous Liverpool writer Tony Schumacher, is an open-eyed reflection of the absurdity of seeing life through such a dramatic polarised lens; and as the five-part series reveals the details of Chris Carson’s life as it spirals out of control, what the viewer is reminded of is life is complicated, it is obscured by the subtly of companionship, of work relationships, and the muddled daily lives of everyone else that influences your decisions. Life is not black and white, it isn’t even grey, it is painter’s palette that has been used a thousand times and never cleaned, all the colours merging, drying, cracking under the strain of overuse and under care.
Filmed in Mr. Schumacher’s native Liverpool, The Responder sees Martin Freeman, an actor who never knowingly undersells himself on screen, take on the role of under pressure officer Chris Carson, and through a multitude of angles, the viewer sees the two tone investigation into his life break down and turn in on itself as against the backdrop of the scourge of local drug lords, the misery of a broken society that is willing to see the old, the infirm and the neglected forgotten and made to be examples of how capitalism eventually digests itself from the bottom up, and the sense of how desired retribution of perceived sleights and injuries can end up being the dealer of death.
What sets this drama apart from many others that deal with such subjects is the use of the night, of the shadows, and for those who work in such conditions the sense of being out of time, of being in a realm considered often abnormal by those who sleep, that exploitation of unnatural light compliments the storyline immensely.
The other telling factor of the miniseries is the amount of actors who either are from Liverpool or have made an impact on audiences in towns close to the city on show across the entire storyline, especially in the huge pleasure derived from seeing the likes of Philip McGuinness, Mark Womack, Warren Brown, Ian Hart, the ever elegant Rita Tushingham, the superb Kerrie Hayes, Roy Brandon, and Christine Tremarco all being involved in the heavy duty plot line and giving enormous pleasure in their performances.
It is perhaps though to Adelayo Adedayo that the plaudits and applause must come for the absolute sheer brilliance she portrays as the probationary officer Rachel Hargreaves, a woman with two distinct lives, one as force for good in a world that is often cynical, and the other, the private side of her life, which is faced with torture, of domestic abuse. It is in this portrayal that the spotlight penetrates the dark, and it is chilling, fearful, and supremely acted.
The Responder is not just great television, the culmination of artist’s vision, it is the reveal we all need, the reminder that we must all take note of, that what lays between the black and white is more honest than what surrounds it, and the spectrum of colour that unfolds can emerge with greater depth and meaning that what others prefer you to believe.
Ian D. Hall