While it’s quite true that its global news service
is really and absolutely nothing but Giant Pro-War Dross Bollocks
it’s also true that the BBC can – like its documentaries – occasionally pinch out dramas
that are of an unparalleled worldwide standard.
These are some such dramas.
“House of Cards”, “To Play The King” & “The Final Cut”
tracks Ian Richardson’s creepily brilliant and highly demonic stint as Westminsters’s Chief Whip
who crawls – like a lizard – slowly and surely to absolute power – in the wake of Thatcher’s departure.
The story was adapted from a novel written by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party headquarters (UK)
& draws heavily from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Richard III,
both of which examine issues of power, ambition and corruption.
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“State of Play”
This serial begins with the murder of a young man – in what appears to be a drug-related killing,
and the apparently coincidental death of a young researcher for an MP.
As the deaths are investigated by a journalist and his colleagues
[ which include that chick from Trainspotting and Bill Nighy ]
it appears that not only were the deaths connected,
but that a conspiracy links them with an oil industry-backed corruption
of high-ranking English government ministers.
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“The Shadow Line”
shows a gangland murder investigated simultaneously by both sides of the line
– police and criminals – and the opposing methods that they use to solve it.
But the real story is of the morality within each character – how far they will go before they cross this line
and of the nature of how such worlds overlap.
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