Acclaimed cold-case drama Unforgotten returns with a new case and new ‘guv’ - Sydney Morning Herald
By Debi Enker
When Irish actress Sinead Keenan learned that she was on the short list for a lead role in the crime drama Unforgotten, her reaction wasn't what you might expect. "My agent called and said, 'ITV wants to give the script to three actors and you're one of them,'" she recalls. "And I said, 'Thank you very much. I'm flattered that they think that might work, but no thank you, I'm not going to get involved.'"
Irish actress Sinead Keenan steps into the role vacated by Nicola Walker as DCI Jess James in season 5 of Unforgotten.Credit: Jonathan Ford
The producers of the acclaimed series created and written by Chris Lang were seeking to fill the space left by Nicola Walker. She'd starred as DCI Cassie Stuart through four rightly revered seasons, playing opposite Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunil "Sunny" Khan. Together the pair had worked determinedly with their dedicated team to solve cold cases, bringing to their investigations an almost religious zeal. With an absence of bravado but a powerful sense of purpose, they saw it as their mission to achieve justice for those who couldn't speak for themselves, people who'd been the victims of unsolved murders or mysteriously disappeared, as well as for their devastated family members, friends and loved ones.
Speaking from her home in Stratford-upon-Avon, Keenan (Being Human, Little Boy Blue, Three Families) explains that she'd witnessed the shocked reaction to Walker's exit: "I thought, 'God love anyone who's going to be taking that part,'" she recalls with a laugh. "And then my agent did her job and said, 'Look, just read it, that's all you need to do'. And I read the first script and I was pretty much in. So I sort of crawled back to her and asked, 'Do they have a second script by any chance?'"
She auditioned for the role of DCI Jessie James and landed the part. Explaining her initial trepidation, she adds, "You see it in other series, when a beloved character's gone and that character-shaped hole is left. They bring a character in to basically be the same, the same energy, just a different name. Of course, I didn't factor in Chris Lang, who's a really good writer, to bring in somebody completely different and to give it a different energy."
From the outset, it's clear that Jessie represents a new era and it's fair to say that she and Sunny don't get off to a good start. The DCI arrives at her new posting convinced that the unit "hoovers up" too many resources and unconvinced of the need for historical cases to receive so much attention.
"She handles it cack-handedly," Keenan says. "She comes in saying, 'We're not going to do this, we're not going to do that, budgets, budgets, budgets.' She's one of those cops who was fast-tracked through university, as opposed to being on the beat and working her way up. She's doing what she believes is the job that she's been put in there to do. I don't know how things are in Australia, but certainly here at the moment with frontline services, they're squeezing everything out of every penny. So budgets are in sharp focus."
Martina Laird, Ian McElhinney, Sinead Keenan, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Max Rinehart and Rhys Yates in season five of cold-case drama Unforgotten.Credit: Jonathan Ford
Jess's brusque manner and bald statement of priorities do not sit comfortably with Sunny and her new team. As a result, when they begin investigating a case in which human bones are found concealed in a chimney, there's tension in the previously cohesive group.
But while Lang has economically and effectively altered the dynamics between the key characters, Unforgotten retains the qualities that have made it such a standout. Some crime series operate like puzzles and can be fairly bloodless, allowing viewers to know little or care less about the victims. The focus in such productions is on whodunnit, the victim and the suspects functioning as plot devices in service of the mystery.
Unforgotten sits at the other end of the spectrum, creating a haunting sense of sadness as it focuses on the damage caused by crime. It's about grief, loss and regret, and the ripple effect of a murder on a range of characters. It also probes the social and political circumstances that contributed to the tragedy. As investigations proceed, a vivid sense of the victim and his or her life emerges. While the identifying the perpetrator is important, the why becomes as significant as the who.
Typically, Lang introduces an array of characters who appear unconnected: different classes and generations, different jobs, living in different places. One of his gifts is to create an intriguing web and to gradually reveal the invariably surprising ties that bind the characters together. In the new season, the group includes a retired Tory minister (Ian McElhinney), a worker in the freight facility at Charles de Gaulle airport (Max Rinehart), a couple running a vegan restaurant in Bath (Martina Laird and Mark Frost), and a thief (Rhys Yates). As their stories unfold, it's clear that each is confronting stressful challenges.
That the series continues to deliver the quality that has distinguished it to date isn't entirely surprising because, Keenan notes, "Andy Wilson has directed every episode, which is highly unusual in TV. And Chris has written every episode, again, highly unusual. So there's a great sense of continuity."
It's fair to say that DCI Jess James (Sinead Keenan) does not get on well with DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) when she first joins the unit that investigates the circumstances of a murder victim.Credit: Jonathan Ford
In addition, she observes, "Andy's said that the success of Unforgotten is that it's quite lo-fi: there are no big gun scenes, car chases, none of that flashy, sexy kind of cop-show thing. There's a place for those cop shows; they're exciting, but in a very different way.
"One of the things that's lovely about Unforgotten is that you start with this seemingly disparate group of people and you wonder how in the name of God were they ever connected. Then, slowly but surely, with that kind of dogged, almost – for want of a better word – that kind of dull policing, going through phone records, bit by bit, it all begins to click together. It doesn't shout about itself. It's not showy. It's solid."
As the investigation proceeds, a key issue becomes the impact that cuts to social services have had on some of the characters, including healthcare workers and their patients. "It's not didactic," Keenan notes. "It's subtle, but it's there, clear but not preaching. Chris has said that he wanted to do a series that was political with a small 'p', showing the impact that politics does have. Because it can be very easy to say, 'Oh yes, Westminster, that's nothing to do with me, I'm not into that.' But decisions there have an absolute and very real impact on people's day-to-day lives."
The show's engrossing fifth season deploys the same ingredients that have made Unforgotten such a distinctive production. For Keenan, that's reassuring: "I signed up for two seasons, but at that stage they'd only committed to one, so we didn't know what would happen. And we're going again, which is lovely. So I can breathe a sigh of relief and go, 'Well, I didn't break it.'"
Unforgotten (season five) is on BBC First, Sunday, May 14, 8.30pm.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Comments
Post a Comment