police
The Met: Policing London, BBC OneTuesday, 09 June 2015![]() This is supposed to be a major five-part documentary series probing into the innards of the Metropolitan Police, but it felt suspiciously like W1A in uniform. Was it the muted but insistently ominous background music, always trying to tell us that... Read more... |
The Angry Brigade, Bush TheatreFriday, 08 May 2015![]() Today, terrorism means killing as many innocent people as possible. Fear is created by completely random attacks, so that no one feels safe. But there was a time, in the past, when political anarchists would focus their attacks on selected targets... Read more... |
No Offence, Channel 4Tuesday, 05 May 2015![]() There’s been much hullabaloo surrounding the new series from Paul Abbott – and with good reason. It’s a decade since we’ve seen any TV from the creator of State of Play and Clocking Off and, given the impact and lasting legacy of Shameless,... Read more... |
Spiral, Series 5, BBC FourSunday, 11 January 2015![]() It's a poignant moment for the return of this superior French police drama. With the Paris terrorist crisis the top story across all media, we rejoin our fictional police captain Laure Berthaud to find her still in emotional fragments following the... Read more... |
The Fall, Series 2 Finale, BBC TwoFriday, 19 December 2014![]() Before the second series of The Fall began, I was watching Gillian Anderson being interviewed on This Morning. While the subject matter of the drama - a tense game of cat and mouse between Anderson’s DSI Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan’s perverted... Read more... |
The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, ITVThursday, 11 December 2014Four years ago Christopher Jefferies was the victim of a concerted attack by the British press. His tenant Joanna Yeates had been murdered and, lacking any other leads, police arrested her landlord. While he was still being questioned, the... Read more... |
Confessions of a Copper, Channel 4Thursday, 20 November 2014![]() This will have brought a nostalgic tear to the eye of fans of The Sweeney (the TV show, not the Ray Winstone movie) or GF Newman's still-shocking 1978 series Law and Order. The producers had rounded up seven retired policepersons and got them to... Read more... |
24 Hours in Police Custody, Channel 4Tuesday, 18 November 2014![]() “Your law is too soft. Make it more strict.” An Albanian illegal immigrant suspected of handling stolen goods was unimpressed by the courtesy extended to him by Bedfordshire Police. Too many pleases and thank yous, he complained. In Tirana the... Read more... |
Scott & Bailey, Series 4, ITVThursday, 25 September 2014![]() When Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) told the promotion board at the beginning of this series: “I’m not a liability, I’m a safe pair of hands”, we knew it would be a matter of sitting back and waiting to see in what manner she would heap disgrace upon... Read more... |
22 Jump StreetSaturday, 07 June 2014![]() "We're too old for this shit," quips Jenko (Channing Tatum), quoting one of the greats of weary screen policing - Lethal Weapon's Murtaugh - in response to his latest nonsensically spectacular brush with death. "We started off too old for this shit... Read more... |
Fruitvale StationMonday, 02 June 2014![]() In the very first hours of 2009, Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old African-American, was traveling back to the East Bay suburbs with a group of friends after celebrating New Year’s in San Francisco when they were herded off their BART train (the Bay... Read more... |
Meet the Police Commissioner, Channel 4Thursday, 29 May 2014![]() The Big Society. Not to be confused with other Bigs: the Big Bang, Chill, Sleep, Easy, Lebowski, Fat Greek Wedding, Trouble in Little China etc. History records that David Cameron’s sizeable brainwave vaporised on impact with reality around the time... Read more... |
