The Sweeney (television series)

When I was very young, there were certain television programmes which retained a mystique, usually because I was never, or rarely, permitted to watch such programmes by my parents!  One of these shows was The Sweeney, the highly influential and acclaimed Seventies crime-drama series.

As I grew older, I was led to understood that The Sweeney had been "ground-breaking" and "gritty", but I had been unable to judge this for myself.  When the series was first broadcast, a combination of factors meant that I was not able to view the show.  The timeslot when it was shown, parental concern over violent content, and our family's mild anti-ITV snobbery were foremost. Whenever any discussion turned to the show, I felt somehow left out.

It was not until the recent past that I was able to watch The Sweeney in any concerted form. It was a revelation to me, although from a 21st century perspective it doesn't seem as innovative or as edgy as it must have done circa 1975/76. And of course some of the attitudes exhibited would not meet the approval of a modern audience.

The series gives a very authentic and honest portrayal of the Seventies in London, and by extension of Britain as a whole during that period of time. An atmosphere of decay and gloom, maybe, but also a sense of community and certainty before technological and socio-economic developments began to change things irrevocably.

The Sweeney follows the adventures of a group of detectives in the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad. The three main characters are Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw), Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman) and their boss, Frank Haskins (Garfield Morgan).

Regan is an intriguing and ambiguous character, superbly played by John Thaw. A proponent of unorthodox methods, he seems old-school, but in some ways he might be said to be ahead of his time. He is regularly at odds with his superiors, and even with his subordinates. The writing and the acting combine to make the concept and realisation of Regan very believable and credible, not just as some caricature. A man of contradictions, he appears cynical and jaded, but at the same time seems wholly committed to, and immersed in, his job.

Another key, in my eyes, to the success and appeal of The Sweeney is that it does not over-emphasize or excessively utilize some of the "recurring" themes. For example, Regan and his team are not uniformly at loggerheads with The Powers That Be. Sometimes they find common cause. This measured approach adds authenticity, and prevents the series from becoming stale and predictable.

Dennis Waterman has perhaps not been accorded enough praise or credit for his performance as George Carter. I have always found Waterman likeable in whatever role he happens to be playing, and this series finds him in great, assured form.

The character of Carter perhaps represents the police in a state of flux, incorporating clear elements of the "old school", but also receptive to, and embracing, new methods and tools. Carter often questions Regan's excesses and his outlandish schemes, but is sometimes placated by his "guv'nor"'s self-confidence, his persuasive manner and his track record.

The episode "Hit And Run", in which Carter's wife is killed, provides a fine showcase for Waterman's talents, going way beyond the bravado and machismo for which The Sweeney is, rightly or wrongly, renowned.

It is tempting to see parallels between Jack Regan and Inspector Morse, another detective famously portrayed by John Thaw. An older, cynical, grumpy character, with a penchant for the unorthodox, partnered with a younger, ambitious, more "domesticated" sergeant.

The plaudits extended to The Sweeney are well deserved, but this is not to say that every episode is brilliant. Like other similar television series, it suffered from a lack of continuity and consistency, partly because different episodes had different writers and directors. The ambience and tenor of each story could vary greatly from the next one, with difficulties in maintaining "back story".  Some episodes bordered on comedy - "Thin Ice", "Golden Fleece" and "Messenger Of The Gods" spring to mind. Light relief is all well and good, but not to detract from the mood which is essential to the show.

Few punches were pulled in the depiction of an escalation in the ruthlessness and violence displayed by criminals. I can see how this would have been shocking for the people in the Seventies, raised as they were on a diet of shows featuring gentlemanly, even chivalrous villains, and correspondingly placid and reticent cops. Episodes such as "Taste Of Fear" and " Bait" have the capacity to unsettle and disturb, even after all these years. The rawness set new standards.

The impression emerged that the intricacies of detective work and police procedure had been thoroughly researched, and some things are left unexplained, leaving the viewers to work a few things out for themselves. One eventually gets used to the jargon and slang!

A few episodes did over-reach themselves, and look rather silly today.  One example is "Tomorrow Man", in which John Hurt plays a computer whizz-kid. The word is that Thaw and Waterman grew finally to consider that The Sweeney had run its course. Within the remit of the squad, it was inevitable that genuinely fresh ideas for storylines would dry up eventually. That said, I don't feel that the show went particularly stale or moribund. It ended on a suitably bitter and abrasive note in "Jack or Knave", with Regan feeling highly aggrieved after being investigated for alleged corruption.

Watching The Sweeney is still a rewarding and satisfying experience, sometimes thought-provoking. Dated in some respects, yes, but still quality television.

Funeral In Berlin - Len Deighton

The Cold War is such an inherently captivating and dramatic setting that is tempting to say that even a writer of mediocre talents should be capable of turning out a moderately praiseworthy spy novel set in the period. In reality, a high degree of suppleness.finesse and knowledge is required to write a convincing and exciting one, and but few are endowed with these capabilities. One of the people possessing these talents is Len Deighton, author of Funeral In Berlin.

The initial plot of Funeral In Berlin centres on a plan to arrange the defection of an eminent Soviet scientist to the West, via certain "intermediaries".  However, the waters become muddied, as the murky and equivocal backgrounds of some characters are gradually unfurled. The shadow of the death-camps, collaboration and war-crimes soon descends. On several levels, I detected echoes of this book in Frederick Forsyth's later novel The Odessa File.

The beginning of the story is suitably enigmatic, helping to convey the shifty, subterranean world of espionage.  The eccentricities, the double lives, the solitude, the boredom and the loneliness. There is shrewdly sparse exposition, dropping miniscule morsels, for instance leading the reader to be inquisitive about the importance, or otherwise, of various characters.

Many of the spy thrillers of the era portray London as a grim, monochrome and austere place.  Funeral In Berlin partially follows this trend, but there are a few definite splashes of Swinging Sixties optimism and style. In this novel, Deighton also creates a vivid sensation of a Berlin full of contrasts, vibrancy and character, more freewheeling and "technicolour" than is often depicted.

Another intriguing aspect of the story is the series of references to the development of the post-war German psyche, at what some might describe as a transitional point between the aftermath of the war and the blossoming of the new, modern, prosperous Germany.  A time of tension, opportunity and confusion, where the ambition and self-confidence of certain people helps to mask their deep-seated fears or guilt.

I would say that the plot of Funeral In Berlin is less intellectually arduous than some other espionage thrillers, but the storyline is no less clever for all that. Rather than being rigidly taxing and impenetrable , it consists of a series of fluid jigsaw pieces, each carrying strong hints, with a few different permutations available. It is simply a case of the segments becoming joined, although some elements of the overall picture are still a little ambiguous, and left to the imagination of the reader, at the end.

This was the first Len Deighton work which I have read, and I was greatly impressed by his whimsical style in painting pictures with words, and scene-setting. Real care is exercised in fleshing out the characters to make them seem plausible and human, and a clever ploy is to emphasize traits or eccentricities of players, which eventually turn out to be red herrings, but enhance the overall tapestry and atmosphere.

A nice touch was the series of chess analogies, both by way of the quotations introducing each chapter, and the references to the game in the "dialogue".  One of those things which contributes towards lifting something above the ordinary.

I didn't find Funeral In Berlin to be quite as suspenseful or pulsating as some thrillers which I could mention, but then again it probably wasn't intended as a thriller, but a spy novel.  Judged on those terms, it is a very enjoyable, well conceived and astutely structured novel....

The Ipcress File

Having recently developed a penchant for espionage-related movies, I thought that I would check out The Ipcress File, the 1965 film based on the novel by Len Deighton, and starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.

The first thing which I noticed about this movie was its aesthetic, which combined elements of Swinging London with the the dark and brooding world of espionage.  The latter is portrayed as clinical, austere and occasionally brutal.

Michael Caine can often come across as somewhat anodyne in his performances, but here he does manage to bring out some of the insolence and cynicism of the character.  Palmer was perhaps the quintessential man of his time (the 60s); rebellious, vaguely anti-establishment, self-confidence bordering on arrogance.

The plot does take a little while to "happen", with comparatively little in the way of exposition, but I was carried along by the tension, until things became clearer later in the film.  The gravity of the dialogue and the subject matter leads us to believe that something of great import is happening, but precisely what is not immediately apparent, or at least it wasn't to this viewer!  Much is left untold, leaving us the viewers to try to join the dots.  Repeated watching may shed further light on some of the intricacies.

It can be argued I think that this is not your straightforward, Cold War-orientated spy thriller, of which there was a surfeit around the time that The Ipcress File was released.  Although we eventually discover that the "double agent" phenomenon is at play here, this is something different again, more obscure perhaps.

The elements of mind-control, brainwashing and psychological experimentation which are detailed here are perhaps not as far-fetched or implausible as some might imagine, although towards the end there was almost a sense that espionage and science-fiction were overlapping.

Not until the final scene do many of the strands finally come together, and the supposed duplicity of the Dalby character is determined.  This closing scene is very gripping.

Not having read the novel myself, I am unable to comment on whether the film is faithful to the original story, but whatever the case, this is a very clever and mind-engaging piece of work, even if it is even harder work mentally than other movies of the genre.  The nature of the plot certainly punctured and defied some of my own pre-conceptions. A word also for John Barry's atmospheric music.

Well worth watching, and I am very tempted to seek out Len Deighton's novel.