Robson Green is back on TV in The Games - a drama so bad it is good
Continues till Thursday
A few weeks ago, I reviewed The Feud, a six-part thriller about the building of a kitchen extension. Seriously. A kitchen extension.
I ventured that 5's dramas had now become so bonkers they had entered the strange territory of 'so bad they were good'. Clever old 5, sending itself up and giving us a laugh in the process; what would those genre-bending commissioning editors think of next?
Full disclosure: I'm an eejit. With two parts down and the same to go, it doesn't need the powers of Sherlock Holmes to see The Game is a rum do.
Jason Watkins plays DI Huw Miller, a chap so dull he can't get anyone to attend his retirement bash. Miller was leaving under a cloud, having failed to catch The Ripton Stalker, a mess with your mind type of serial killer who made his victims think they were going mad. He was so arrogant he even had a catchphrase: 'Catch you later'. It was the last thing poor Huw heard before the stalker bashed him over the head and escaped.
Back in the present, only Miller's young colleague Jenny (Amber James) made an effort to mark his retirement. 'I don't know what old men like,' she said, handing over a pair of cufflinks to the 55-year-old. Ouch, but also quite funny.
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It was similarly promising when Gordon Kennedy, of Absolutely fame, turned up as Huw's pal and neighbour, Frank. But then Huw found Frank dead in the bath. Never mind, because Frank's house was bought by Patrick Harbottle (Robson Green), a regular charmer with the ladies.
'I like getting hot and sweaty,' confessed one woman neighbour as she offered to help the new arrival move in.
Not everyone falls for Patrick's charms. There's something about him that makes Huw's spidey senses tingle, especially his use of the phrase 'Catch you later'. Is the game of cat and mouse on again, or is Huw imagining things, just like before?
Green has a smashing time playing smoothie chops Patrick, even if he is hardly Max Cady and this is no Cape Fear. Watkins has a tougher task on his hands with his nervy ex-copper. He was much better, more muted, playing another Everyman tested beyond his limits in the drama Coma. Here, he seems to have only two gears, one and fifth, and he makes a right racket changing up and down.
Helping to keep Huw and the drama in general on an even keel was the ever-reliable Sunetra Sarker (Casualty) as the ex-copper's wife, Alice. Her growing scepticism about Patrick is one of the drama's most promising developments.
Every now and then, there's a mad moment where comedy seems to be reasserting itself, as when one neighbour asks Huw to babysit her kids because she is in desperate need of a mani-pedi. It comes to nothing, alas.
Green, Watkins and Sarker head a pretty decent cast who are not given enough credible things to do and say. In the game of stripped 5 dramas, those are losing moves in anyone's book.
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