In my last blog, I praised the writing and direction of Don’t Forget the Driver for often advancing the narrative wordlessly. I took it for granted that this is an admirable trait and that the opposite, overly heavy-handed exposition, is to be decried, mainly because the speech patterns involved sound so unnatural. Yes, the story has to be advanced, but, even if things are left unclear, I far prefer the minimalist approach and ambiguity can also be a positive virtue. A number of the current new batch of dramas and comedies (and, yes, dramatic-comedies) inspire me to expand upon this theme.

 

The gold standard in this regard is Stefan Golaszewski’s Mum, back on BBC2 (Wednesdays) for its 3^rdand final season, and available complete on BBC i-player (and I must admit that I love this show so much I have already watched every episode twice!). As it is actually about a group of people who find it almost impossible to articulate their feelings, it is no surprise that what is left unsaid is more important than what is spoken. I noted in my blog about the second season, back in April last year, that that it contained a number of extended contemplative scenes and found all the characters in a limbo where nothing happened. Well, the third season finds matters resolving at last and difficult conversations are had, but Golaszewski still finds plenty of time for awkward silences and contemplative moments. One big difference is that the season covers a week in the characters’ lives, rather than a year, much as the final season of Him and Her (BBC, 2010-13) took the characters out of their bedsit for the first time. The setting is still a house, though a much grander one, and the action of each day seemingly takes place in close to real time, as before.

 

All the characters have moved on (just a little, of course) from the stasis of season two and their main problems I identified in my earlier blog seem resolved: Cathy and Michael know they want each other, though the difficulty in reconciling both Jason and Dave’s parents to this remains (and forms the main thread of the new season); Jason and Kelly have finally moved into their own flat and Kelly is pregnant (though hopelessly trying to hide the fact); Pauline’s divorce has come through (and her settlement is paying for the week in the grand house), but she is still clearly uncertain about where she is going, and is as obnoxious as ever and doesn’t fit with the group; and Maureen’s dementia seems to have relented somewhat, possibly now that she has discovered the joy of the i-pad.

 

Making the silences and the awkwardness work is as much (if not more) down to the writing and direction, as it is to the acting.  Maybe that’s why Golaszewski took over directing duties for the second and third seasons – because he knew exactly where it was going, what he wanted and how it would work. Again, I mentioned in my previous blog how I was a little uncertain of his initial approach in the second season, but how it had been vindicated by the end – well, now it makes even more glorious sense. His plan was clearly fully formed.

For me, the key silences of the current season occur in the scenes where Derek does not reply when Pauline asks if she is an awful person and the one between Cathy and Maureen in the final episode, where Cathy says what she wants about moving on two years after Dave’s death while Maureen simply stares silently into the distance. So much in Mum is unsaid or misunderstood that the moments of clarity and honesty are ultra-startling – most notably Michael’s declaration of love to Cathy, made with such gushing eloquence that it must have come as a shock to that usually taciturn character himself. It is inspired by, and echoes, Cathy’s similar outburst near the end of season two. Then there is the magnificent cheer-out-loud moment in the final episode when Cathy tells Pauline to go fuck herself (comparable in impact to David Brent saying much the same to Finchy in the Office finale). And the ending – oh, the ending! – as Golaszewski has his cake and eats it by rewarding us with the sight of Cathy and Michael happy together, but allowing his other cast members to critique it at the same time (“bit trite, just walking into the distance”).

 

It would be too much to hope that Mum should receive the honours it deserves in the categories it deserves them – in other words the proper acting awards, not the ones for comedy performance. I can only honour it by putting it straight onto my own shortlist, which I will also formally enlarge at this point with Back to Life, which finished very well since I blogged about it last time out. And one last aside about Mum – in my previous blog I wondered how the episodes would be titled, given that the first two series had used every month of the year. The answer was that each episode had a day of the week (given the contracted time-scale), from Monday to Saturday, as its title – this came up in white on a black background after the opening credits, which showed the imposing facade of the grand house, and in silence after the last strong beat of “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone”, which made it look a bit like The Shining!

Also in my last blog, I mentioned that new drama series by Russell T. Davies and Shane Meadows were on the horizon. These duly arrived in the same week, on consecutive nights, and so are not only ripe for comparison, but exhibit contrasting versions of the theme under discussion here. Davies’ Years and Years (BBC1, Tuesdays) follows a large family, focussing on four siblings, through a speculative future, beginning in the present. In so doing it addresses pretty much every current political and social issue and then some. The first episode breathlessly covered the years 2019 to 2024, ending in startling fashion with the start of a nuclear war. That, however, proves something of a damp squib (!), and the family’s travails are covered in more depth and at a (slightly) slower pace in subsequent episodes. It is very wordy, very frantic and it (just about) works because of Davies’ trademark wit, though as a speculation on what the future may bring it is no Black Mirror. The characters all have a function as conduits for various issues, but the strength of the cast (Rory Kinnear, Jessica Hynes, Russell Tovey, Emma Thompson et al) ensures that they are not just cyphers.

This is Davies at his most unrestrained, which is not to everybody’s taste and not particularly to mine, as it can be very hit and miss, with plenty to admire, but almost as much to put you off. Last year’s A Very English Scandal was so good because he found an existing subject which fitted him perfectly. This is nearer to his earlier Cucumber (Channel 4, 2015) which contained some phenomenal moments (and one unforgettable episode in particular), but overall was less than the sum of its parts.

By total contrast, Shane Meadows’ The Virtues (co-written with This Is England collaborator Jack Thorne) is brooding and intense. Where the opening episode of Years and Years raced through 5 years of narrative, the first of The Virtues covered two days representing a turning point in the life of semi-autobiographical protagonist Joseph (Stephen Graham). Indeed, the entire segment between the first break and the second consists solely of Joseph getting drunk after saying goodbye to his son, who is emigrating to Australia with his mother and her new partner, while the rest of the episode consists of his impulsive journey to Ireland to confront the ghosts of his past. Apart from a confrontation with a jobsworth in the ferry office, very little is said in any scene, but the presence of Graham keeps you riveted to the screen at all times. So far, the formula has been repeated across three of the four episodes as we gradually edge towards what Joseph must face up to.

Now, obviously these two series are doing different things and the differing scales of narrative demand the different approaches, but for me the minimalist approach of The Virtues communicates a great deal more. Other recent dramas show yet further different approaches to the issue. Stephen Poliakoff has never been shy of employing expository dialogue, though it works better in his most recent offering, Summer of Rockets (BBC2, Wednesdays) than in some of his previous pieces. Indeed, the series itself works better than most recent Poliakoff, which had fallen into an overly-familiar and formulaic pattern of sameness. Despite the usual period setting and sumptuous visuals, this one actually has a decent storyline and some interesting characters and at least I haven’t given up at the first episode, as I did with each of his last three series. Episode two did contain one of the most ludicrous pieces of unnecessary dialogue I have heard of late, though, when a character woke up in bed after a dream sequence and exclaimed “thank goodness that didn’t really happen”!

Sally Wainwright, on the other hand, has usually employed fairly pithy dialogue, at least in her contemporary dramas, but give her a period piece and a sudden need to explain seems to take over. It certainly has in Gentleman Jack (BBC1, Sundays), which I’m afraid I have given up on. I should have known it wouldn’t be for me when the Radio Times described it as “roistering”, which is one of those buzz words which usually warns me off something (“caper” is another) – subtlety is what I prize most in drama.

One more of the current glut of interesting dramas should be mentioned here, and it is one in which explanatory dialogue is very necessary but is perfectly naturally integrated in the script. I mentioned in my previous blog that Chernobyl (Sky Atlantic, Tuesdays) had started strongly and it has very much continued in that vein. The international cast is excellent, the locations totally convincing and the effects brilliantly handled, but the most impressive thing is how the magnitude of the event is conveyed in a way which has had a greater impact than any amount of documentaries or writing before – part of this involves lengthy explanations given by scientists to government figures, just as I imagine must have happened in reality, but there are also plenty of moments where the visuals alone tell the story. It’s extremely impressive. Interestingly, Chernobyl also featured in one of the most striking sequences in David Attenborough’s new series for Netflix, Our Planet, in which he showed how nature is now reclaiming the abandoned and still poisonous townscapes near to where the disaster happened.

 

So, The Virtues and Chernobyl are hovering on the edge of my shortlist, awaiting confirmation when they finish, and I will update it at the half-way stage at the end of June. It has already been an outstanding year and I have a couple of recent documentaries to add to the list, plus 63 Up, which is on ITV next week and is, by its very presence, a certainty for the list before I have even seen a minute of it! I guess that is my next blog sorted.