The Cry
BBC1, 9pm
***
ON the evidence of the first intriguing episode of the BBC’s Sunday night successor to Bodyguard, the viewing jury is still out on whether it will match its predecessor’s record ratings.
One thing the psychological thriller will prompt is an outbreak of skirting board envy. Main characters Joanna and Alistair (Jenna Coleman and Ewen Leslie) live in a house in the West End of Glasgow with the kind of woodwork that will have Notting Hill types drooling.
As it happens, The Cry opens with a scene calling to mind the moment in the Richard Curtis film when Spike opens the door to a wall of waiting media. In this case it is Joanna who is the subject of attention. Why are the press laying siege? Where is she going in that fancy red dress? Hold on, here she is again, dressed down, exiting a different door in another location; and again.
Thus does director Glendyn Ivin set the fractured style in which this story will be told. Back and forth she will go from Glasgow to Melbourne, to the past and present, toying with our preconceptions. It’s an approach that carries an obvious risk of confusing viewers, but going by last night’s opener, Ivin has it licked.
Spooling back to Joanna and Alistair’s first months with their new baby son, Noah, we see a woman struggling to cope and a partner with a bad case of thoughtlessness. Such is the strain she is under it comes as a surprise that she is making plans to visit Australia, where Alistair’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship lives. Not only are the couple going to Melbourne, but they are taking Noah with them. Whoa there. Who in their right mind would take a three-month-old baby on a 24-hour flight to Oz? It is hard enough getting to the local Asda. Why can’t Alistair go to Australia on his own? Has no-one heard of Skype?
Perhaps that is the point, Joanna is not in her right mind, but it does blow rather a large hole in the drama’s credibility.
It is after this predictably nightmarish flight that the little family arrive in Australia, only for their baby to go missing and a fresh hell begin.
Drawn from Helen FitzGerald’s novel and made by Glasgow’s Synchronicity Films, the four-episode drama has two captivating leads and lots of thorny questions being asked about love and parenthood. Appointment TV or not, it definitely demands a return visit next week.
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