Edge of Darkness

We’ve recently been watching the award-winning 1985 BBC television serial Edge of Darkness, starring Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker, and scripted by Troy Kennedy Martin. We hadn’t watched this groundbreaking programme since it was first broadcast in the turbulent times of the Thatcher administration (legend has it that the Iron Lady wanted it banned), and were interested in how it would stand up, both as an entertaining drama and as a piece of political polemic.

Troy Kennedy Martin was very well known as a television scriptwriter at the time, but Edge of Darkness is his masterpiece. He originally wanted to write a series about a number of issues affecting Britain at the time, including the Greenham Common protests, the Miners’ Strike and the Falklands War, and also had thoughts about “a detective who changes into a tree”, but influenced by James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and the secret world of the British nuclear power industry, wrote this gripping political thriller instead.

I’m not going to give away much of the plot, because it might spoil your viewing, but I’ll set the scene. Please skip the next four paragraphs if you don’t even want that…

Police detective Ronald Craven (Bob Peck) witnesses the murder of his daughter Emma (Joanne Whalley), who is brought down by a gunman on the steps of their home. The police think it a botched attempt by a criminal on his life, but it soon becomes clear that Emma was always the intended victim.

Craven decides on a maverick investigation into her death and finds that she was connected to an anti-nuclear group called Gaia. He finds a gun and Geiger Counter among her possessions. Pendleton (Charles Kay), a civil servant attached to the Prime Minister’s office and his associate Harcourt – a great performance by Ian McNeice, tell Craven that his daughter was a terrorist, wanted by the state.

It becomes clear that there was a considerable conflict between Gaia and the British Establishment over the nuclear issue. As is usual with the British powers-that-be, they would like the whole issue of Emma’s death to go quiet. Emma and her associates have entered a nuclear facility called Northmoor, where illegal Plutonium might be being produced. Emma’s body is found to be radioactive.

Enter the CIA who, alarmed at the prospect of illegal Plutonium on the world stage, take an interest in Craven’s plight, despatching agent Darius Jedburgh to England to take an interest in the affair…

That’s the set-up and as much of the plot as I’m going to give away, for this is the conspiracy thriller to beat all conspiracy thrillers and I commend it to you.

This is a well-written series with some great character development. Bob Peck handles Craven’s grief at the death of his daughter in a way that is deeply touching, and his quest to solve the mystery of her murder is both logically and movingly portrayed. Joe Don Baker (who loved the script so much he took a lower fee than usual to be in it) gives a scene-stealing performance as CIA agent Jedburgh, who becomes a crusader for the cause of humanity along the way.

The series was directed by Martin Campbell (also responsible for the inferior film remake starring Mel Gibson) and is probably one of the best directed and beautifully photographed series of the past forty years. There is a stunning and atmospheric musical score by Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen.

The acting is superb, a truly great performance by Bob Peck (who died so tragically young) and a scene-stealing act from Joe Don Baker as the CIA man Jedburgh. Even the small roles stand out – the cream of British acting talent.

As a thriller Edge of Darkness is quite stunning, not only asking the questions we should all be asking, but as with all conspiracy stories really questioning the motives of the people who are in power over us. The thrills come thick and fast, real edge of the seat stuff, particularly some beautifully shot underground sequences as Craven and Jedburgh invade the nuclear facility of Northmoor.

The series thoroughly deserved the many awards it won. It has worn well over the past thirty years and is an instructive reminder of state corruption that seems particularly relevant to the times we live in.

Highly recommended.

 

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Seven Days To Noon

“Seven Days to Noon” is a tense thriller produced and directed by the Boulting Brothers in 1950, which won an Academy Award for best story at the Oscars.

It remains one of the best films made about London in the post-war years – before the developers got a chance to ruin the place with skyscrapers and inappropriate and out-of-scale development. Just watching this film to see how London used to be is a treat.

But back to the plot.

Professor Willingdon (Barry Jones) is a nuclear scientist working at a research centre – somewhere like Aldermaston, though called Wallingford in the film – on developing atomic bombs. The destructive power of weapons he’s worked on has been playing on his mind for a while. He cracks when a nuclear bomb that’s portable is produced.

Deciding that the world needs a sharp lesson, he steals one of the devices and sends a note to the Prime Minister (Ronald Adam – clearly suggested by Clement Attlee) stating that unless the British government publicly abandons its stockpiling of nuclear weapons, he will detonate the stolen weapon and destroy the centre of London in seven days’ time.

It soon becomes apparent that Willingdon has the weapon and Detective Superintendent Folland (Andre Morell) of Special Branch is tasked with capturing the errant scientist and recovering the device before the rapidly approaching deadline.

The film tells the story of the chase from both points of view. We see Folland aided by Willingdon’s deputy Steve Lane (Hugh Cross) and the scientist’s daughter Ann (Sheila Manahan) in pursuit.

But more tellingly we see the story from the point of view of Willingdon himself as he disappears into the mass of people who live in London, blending in with the crowds, seeking accommodation in still gaslit boarding houses. The accuracy of the portrayal of working people is superbly done.

Here we see not the patronising caricatures of working folk as portrayed by some film-makers of the period, but real folk, terrifically acted by the players concerned, who seem to have come in from the streets of a very real London – then as now going through a sustained period of austerity.

One of the many joys of the piece is a faded music-hall star Goldie Phillips (played beautifully by Olive Sloane, an actress fascinating in herself – she’d played small parts in films from the silent days of the 1920s. This was her one big lead and she is terrific!)

Goldie takes in Professor Willingdon, unaware until too late of who he is. As London is evacuated he decides to hide out in her bedsit until the fateful Noon comes nearer.

As he hides out, London is evacuated. There are near documentary scenes of thousands of people being loaded on to trains, lorries and buses. Traffic jams block the roads as cars flee the capital. Then the silent streets of an empty London.

The viewer can only admire the skill of the director and producers in making a film on the real streets of London that portray so dramatically such matters. I doubt you could stop the traffic long enough to do it today. The People of London get a credit as the titles roll for their part in making the film.

Gradually the dragnet closes in on Willingdon as soldiers and the police search the streets from the suburbs to the heart of the city. And…

But I’ll stop there, for this is a film that you’ll certainly enjoy watching all the way through. Gripping stuff!

Few films of the 1950s capture the atmosphere of post-war London quite so well. Made at a time when many producers were looking backwards in time with war stories and even further back, “Seven Days to Noon” captures aspects of British society too often overlooked.

And it has at its heart the question of the morality of producing weapons of mass destruction. Is Willingdon actually mad, or is he sane and ahead of his time? The authorities who are trying to thwart his plans seem to hold the moral high ground, but do they?

“Seven Days to Noon” is a neglected masterpiece of film-making, with good strong characterisation and tense and vivid direction.

It deserves to be better known.