Protection, ITV1 review: Siobhan Finneran finally gets the lead role she deserves
Hallelujah! Siobhan Finneran has been given a lead role, and it's about time too. She has been great right back to Rita, Sue and Bob Too. She can do brassy (Benidorm) and icy (Downton Abbey) and naive (Happy Valley) but has never had the chance to carry a show. Until now, with the crime thriller Protection (ITV1).
And, as you would expect, she's cracking. She plays DI Liz Nyles, who works in the Protected Persons Service, better known as witness protection. It's her job to keep a family safe as the father prepares to give evidence against a crime boss. But the location of their safe house is leaked and soon Nyles has to combine her role as protector with rooting out the corrupt copper who is sabotaging the operation from the inside. The ensuing drama has shades of Line of Duty, particularly as Nyles's boss is played by Ace Bhatti, whom you may remember as LoD's slippery police and crime commissioner.
Nyles has other worries: she's a single parent who has also assumed caring duties for her ailing father (David Hayman). And there's the awkward matter of her affair with a colleague (Barry Ward), a relationship that becomes pertinent to the case. If that's not enough, a supercilious detective from another unit, played by Katherine Kelly, has her suspicions that Nyles is responsible for the leak.
Things get off to a confident start, with punchy action scenes directed by Simen Alsvik (Lilyhammer). It's clearly plotted and not filmed in the dark, which makes a refreshing change from half of the shows we're served these days. Then it gets a bit silly. If you're going to make a serious drama about witness protection – the opening caption solemnly informs us that, at any given time in the UK, there are up to 3,000 people in the programme; police officers in the units often work under aliases, just as the witnesses go under assumed identities – then please don't have Nyles taking a child witness into her own home with no security measures whatsoever.
Over successive episodes she leaves this kid at home, takes her out in the car with no police back-up even though murderers are on their tail, and even manages to lose her at one point. As with all ITV dramas, suspension of disbelief is required. It does keep you guessing, though, and you will have no idea who to trust. And if the quality of the plotting fails to match Finneran's talents, it doesn't matter all that much – you still get to watch her be the star of the show.
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