This week the third, and possibly last, series of Jimmy McGovern’s exemplary series The Street came to an end. Although the final episode, starring Timothy Spall, was not, I thought, up to the expectations invoked by the previews, this has been an excellent series, containing some of the best British TV drama for quite a while.
The funny thing is – people like me are always complaining that the great days of TV drama are over, that there’s nothing to compare with the glory days of the 1980s when Play for Today rolled out a new quality drama every week. Yet, although ostensibly The Street is a continuing drama, and there are characters that appear in several episodes, really this is Play for Today – a series of standalone plays in a prime-time weekly slot. In each episode someone faces a critical moral dilemma – the bedrock of all great drama. I’m grateful to A for drawing to my attention that one reviewer described an earlier episode as ‘East Enders by Sophocles’.
And that is what the episodes are like – shouty, dramatic (sometimes over the top) – McGovern displaying his Brookside roots – but also presenting real moral and social questions, challenging and provoking the viewer. There were two outstanding episodes in this excellent series. The first was the one where racist chef Kieran (Joseph Mawle) is forced to confront his bigotrywhen he is acclaimed for rescuing a Polish girl from a burning house and finds himself falling for her beautiful mother. But this is only dilemma number one – because he didn’t actually rescue the girl; it was his mate who wants to stay out of it because he’s claiming invalidity. And Kieran also has a female boss who he discovers is black – and really someone good to be with. Good writing and excellent performances made this an outstanding play.
The other episode that stood out for me was the one in which the hopeless alchoholic Shay (Stephen Graham) is forced to reassess his life and his alcoholism when he discovers that he has a 16-year-old son he never knew about. When he meets Otto for the first time, he is forced to confront his prejudices about disability because Otto has Down’s Syndrome. Again the script and the acting were outstanding – Stephen Graham, Maxine Peake as Otto’s mum, and a brilliant performance by Leon Harrop as Otto. Above all, this play ended inconclusively; Shay is attending AA sessions, having Otto over at weekends – but will he sustain it?
Interestingly, the episodes I feel were the weakest (though we are judging by high standards here) – the first and the last -were the two wholly scripted by McGovern. This week’s finale began promisingly, with the relationship between Eddie (Timothy Spall) and Sandra (Ruth Jones) developing in some fine scenes, particularly the meal at her flat where they’re sat opposite each other, as if at work. But the ending, with Eddie’s wife Margie dying as a consequence of his revelations, was overblown – and the scene with the speeches at her funeral I found embarassing (though perhaps Bob Hoskins’ was deliberately so).
In the first episode Paddy, the landlord of the local pub (Bob Hoskins), bars Callum Miller from his pub for smoking, and must face the wrath of Callum’s father – Thomas Miller, the local gangster. It was an entertaining remake of High Noon, that as well posing straightforward moral questions facing the publican– Should he swallow his pride and kowtow to drug gangsterism to save his business? Could he shield his own son from the fight, while asking other young men to back him up? – also questioned the role of booze and the boozer in the life of the street. He insists it’s more than a business: it is the mainstay of the community. When he goes to ask the football team for help taking on Miller – who’d funded the side with profits from the drugs trade – Paddy is confronted by the coach who argues that the most dangerous drug of all is the alcohol Paddy serves. As if to prove the point, the only customer in the pub when Miller gets his revenge on Paddy is the local drunk. But his loyalty is to the beer he serves.
The Street won British TV’s top industry awards for two consecutive years, picking up both the 2007 and 2008 BAFTA and Royal Television Society Awards for best drama series, as well as international Emmys. It’s produced by ITV Studios for BBC One, and this may be last series as McGovern is threatening to pull the plug in protest at ITV drama cuts.
‘The Street has genuinely struck a chord with people’, Jimmy McGovern reflects. ‘I think it works because it tells truthful, yet extraordinary stories about ordinary people. All the stories are about heart and humanity. Viewers can relate to these characters – we can all put ourselves in their shoes and think, ‘there but the grace of God, go I’.’
Producer Matthew Bird says, ‘Jimmy also has a very strong moral sense. In his stories, those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Everyone gets the comeuppance they deserve. In one of the episodes in this series, for example, a really racist character ends up falling in love with a lovely Polish woman. Jimmy has a highly-developed sense of right and wrong.’
Executive producer Sita Williams emphasises how Jimmy’s scripts brim with compassion. ‘Look at a character like Shay, an alcoholic who is initially vile to his son with Down’s syndrome. But Jimmy manages to bring out Shay’s humanity. You don’t want to like him, but you can’t help but warm to him. You forgive him because he really does try to overcome his problems. Anti-heroes become heroes in Jimmy’s world because they attempt to reverse their fortunes and, most importantly, become better people.’
Sita adds: ‘There is always hope in Jimmy’s work. It baffles me when The Street is sometimes criticised for being grim – it’s actually very uplifting. It’s all about redemption – in a world full of disasters and wars, we want human beings to redeem themselves. If we feel humans can make a better life for themselves, then we think that at least there is some light in the world. The Street is about people restoring relationships and making amends. People think the series is tough, but in fact it’s just a very honest and unsentimental portrayal of reality.’
That's How The Light Gets In 