An Englishman's Castle (12)
Simply Media, £19.99
The What If? school of fiction is well-populated with fantastical alternate realities based on historical outcomes which never transpired. One of its most appealing sub-strands concerns what would have happened had Germany won the second world war. It's the premise behind Robert Harris's 1992 novel Fatherland, though its most potent expression is in Len Deighton's 1978 police thriller SS-GB.
In June of 1978, two months before SS-GB was published, BBC Two aired this three-part drama by Philip Mackie, best known for adapting The Naked Civil Servant for television in 1976. Again, Germany has won the war but here the subject is not the police force but the BBC itself, notably its power as both opiate and agitator, and the extent to which its neutrality can be compromised by the governing class. Not that we ever see these new German overlords. Their presence is merely suggested.
Kenneth More plays Peter Ingram, writer of a hit soap opera set in 1940 as the Nazi invasion begins. Having fought the Germans on the beaches, joined the Resistance after the country fell then surrendered in the general amnesty which followed, Ingram is deemed to have had a “good war”. It's this story of struggle and eventual acquiescence that he presents in his soap, An Englishman's Castle. The Germans don't mind because, as Ingram is told by unctuous BBC controller Harmer (Anthony Bate), they appreciate patriotism.
Each episode starts in the production control room as the programme is being cued in, then moves into the on-screen action, then pulls out to follow Ingram, his cast and his family, obedient older son Henry (David Meyer) and hot-headed Mark (a ludicrously fresh-faced Nigel Havers).
In the background, but barely disturbing Ingrams's cosy life of rehearsal rooms and BBC bars, is a pub bombing campaign waged by “terrorists”. The obvious parallel here is the series of mainland IRA attacks which took place four years earlier. But when Mark is arrested and the married Ingram begins an affair with his leading actress Jill (Isla Blair), his world is turned upside: explosives are found under Mark's bed and in Jill's he learns that she's Jewish and has been tasked with recruiting him for the Resistance. An uprising is planned but it will only be launched when a key phrase is inserted into a scene in An Englishman's Castle. And she wants to be the one to do it.
There are one too many moments of jaw-droppingly sexist dialogue in Mackie's script, and Paul Ciappessoni's direction is as slow and formulaic as you'd expect from 1970s TV. On the plus side, it means plenty of those long, discursive scenes so familiar from (and integral to) the epics of the period, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. An Englishman's Castle is being re-released along with a slew of other BBC “classics” and if they're all as gripping and thought-provoking as this one, it's quite a trove.
Dark Matter (15)
Acorn, £24.99
Although the seer-like William Gibson still calls the country home, Canada isn't going to top anyone's list of places which have contributed greatly to sci-fi. Dark Matter won't change that, but its berth on the prestigious Syfy channel in the US is worth noting. So too is its intriguing opening: six people come out of deep freeze on board a spaceship with no knowledge of who they are or how they got there. They adopt numbers for names, fight amongst themselves and finally, thanks to their attractive on-board android, learn that each has a very dubious skillset. What they don't know is which one of their number wiped their collective memories while they were in stasis. The dead boy in one of the cargo holds will take some explaining too, as will the weapons the ship is carrying and enormous door they can't seem to open. The comparison with Blake's Seven is obvious, though given the good-humoured wisecracking you can throw in a bit of The A Team too. Dark Matter isn't as good as it could be because it's hard to take seriously lines like “Initiating magnetic boots!” (this as the android makes the obligatory space walk to repair some gamma ray damage) but the way the writers drip-feed information is well-enough done to keep you watching. The 13 episodes are presented in a three-disc set and if you like this there's more to come: a second series was commissioned last month.
Good People (15)
Lionsgate, £15.99
Lame thriller from first-time Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz starring James Franco and Kate Hudson as Americans who relocate to London after a miscarriage to do up the house he's been left by a relative. When a tenant overdoses and they find a six figure cash sum in the basement, they keep the windfall. Bad move: psycho gangster Jack Witkowski (Sam Spruell) blows in to claim it and so does the French drugs kingpin Jack stole it from in the first place (Omar Sy). Spruell comes out with credit and, although he's totally wasted in the role, so does Sy. For Tom Wilkinson, as vengeful cop John Halden, it's one to forget.
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