Introducing cockney accents and be-wigged barristers into the format that made Law & Order America’s longest-running primetime show today could easily have put ITV in the dock accused of making first-degree rubbish.
But a special preview of episode one at the British Film Institute in London (February 5), attended by the show’s creator Dick Wolf, writer/executive producer Chris Chibnall and stars Ben Daniels and Freema Agyeman, suggests ITV have cracked the case.
Bradley Walsh and Jamie Bamber
Not only have they imported all the trademarks of the 19-year-old franchise – the opening ‘these are their stories’ voiceover, the dun-dun music at scene changeovers, the high-tempo storytelling – but they’ve got the British bits just about right.
First, the cast. Bradley Walsh, with his rap sheet of light entertainment and Coronation Street acting, may have raised suspicions of miscasting, but he is undoubtedly watchable as DS Ronnie Brooks, the East End copper with a boozy past. He delivers the pithy dialogue and can time the humorous lines well, though these occasionally jarred in the opening story about a dead toddler.
Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Ultimate Force) is his partner, DS Matt Devlin, and Harriet Walter (Morris: A Life with Bells On, Atonement) has the presence and confidence of a woman who has worked her way through the ranks to be their boss, DI Natalie Chandler.
Freema Agyeman and Ben Daniels
The courtroom side of the regular cast is po-faced enough to convince as barristers. Ben Daniels is Senior Crown Prosecutor James Steel, Freema Agyeman his assisting prosecutor Alesha Phillips, and Bill Paterson, straight from Little Dorrit, is CPS director George Castle. At times they're a little too earnest in righting wrongs and bemoaning how unfair the legal system is. Patrick Malahide seems much more the real deal as smug, slippery defending QC, Robert Ridley.
Second, London is used well as the drama’s backdrop, in the same way that New York infuses the US version. Gasometers, derelict flats and King’s Cross give the opener a realistic edge.
Third, Chris Chibnall (Torchwood, Life on Mars) has done a fine job adapting the show. Chibnall explained his approach. ‘I was looking for stories that I connected with emotionally, that had great opportunities for characterisation, and felt relevant to Britain today. I watched about 150 episodes of the US Law & Order.’
Emotional Story about the Death of a Child
The opener, entitled Care and based on US episode Cradle to Grave, certainly has emotional clout. A dead toddler is left in a bag at a hospital entrance. Brooks and Devlin trace the mother and discover the child died of poisoning from a sabotaged heating system. But is the mother responsible, or the baby’s minder, or the landlord of the flats?
Dick Wolf said after the screening that he was happy Chibnall had taken good care of his baby, adding he’d ‘love to do a crossover between the shows’ and that the London version was strong enough to be used by NBC in America on Saturday nights.
From Doctor Who to Law & Order
Agyeman, stepping from one huge series (Doctor Who), said of her new one, ‘I wanted it to be like the American version but different. The fact that London is the backdrop makes it different, but is still has the slickness and pace.’
Was Daniels, who starred in the BBC's The Passion and The State Within, intimidated by taking on the role played by Sam Waterston in the US? ‘No. I come from the theatre where, if you never stepped into anyone’s shoes, there never be another Hamlet.’
Revitalising British Crime Series?
With the traffic nearly always being the other way across the Atlantic – US TV customising Brit hits like The Office and Life on Mars – Law & Order: UK bucks an historic trend.
But British TV has been unable to do anything exciting with the cop format since Prime Suspect and Cracker. Maybe American know-how will gee-up UK executives to commission something slick and daring and save viewers from rigor mortis by watching the likes of Rosemary & Thyme and Blue Murder for evermore.
- Law & Order: UK episode 1 Care
- Kudos Films and Television, Wolf Films
- Starring: Bradley Walsh, Jamie Bamber, Harriet Walker, Ben Daniels, Freema Agyeman, Bill Paterson
- Teleplay: Chris Chibnall
- Producer: Richard Stokes
ITV1’s 13-part series Law & Order: UK starts Monday 23 February
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