'Mother of God': The Return of Line of Duty

The return of Line of Duty could not be more timely. The events of Clapham Common last weekend, the riots in Bristol and the anniversary of the murder of PC Keith Palmer today, mean that the safety of our brave police men and women should be on our minds and yet the role of the police is fiercely debated. 

Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty, now in its sixth series, is all about the dark side of Britain’s police, from corruption to unlawful killing and complicity in organised gang crime. Interestingly, given the current debate about policing, the series has attracted a cult following and the opening show of Season 6 had an audience of almost ten million, not counting viewers on BBC iPlayer. By today’s standards, these are huge figures and it’s hardly surprising the BBC are milking the series for all it’s worth. After Sherlock and with the falling ratings of Doctor Who, the BBC needs every success they can find.       

Line of Duty is the BBC’s biggest drama hit. Except for Season 2, its audience has risen season on season, from almost 4 million (Seasons 1 and 2) to 9.4 million (Season 4) rising to almost 13 million (Season 5). It’s not only pulling in the viewers, it’s also won sixteen awards and been nominated for 46 more. Ted Hastings’ catchphrases have caught on everywhere – “Bent coppers”, “Mother of God”, “We weren’t born yesterday, fella”, “Now we’re sucking diesel”. And it’s all over social media, the sure sign of a real hit. 

What explains its huge success? First, of course, there’s the writing by Jed Mercurio. It’s worth watching his BBC hospital series, Bodies (2004-06), on BBC iPlayer, to see how much he’s developed as a writer. Bodies was predictable, relied too much on sex and melodrama, and lacked a single key presence. Line of Duty, by contrast, is full of twists and turns, established three strong central characters right from the start, and then added a whole number of compelling new characters, sometimes just for one series, sometimes running through several of them. 

Above all, it has a strong moral centre. There is no doubting that AC-12 are the good guys, or who the baddies are. Best of all, there is the grey zone running through every series, where it’s not clear whether someone is good or bad. 

The acting is superb. AC-12, the police anti-corruption unit, is led by Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings), his greatest TV performance, assisted by Martin Compston (DS Steve Arnott) and Vicky McClure (DI Kate Fleming), who established her reputation with her award-winning performances in Shane Meadows’ Channel 4 tetralogy, This is England (2006), This is England ’86 (2010), This is England ’88 (2011) and This is England ’90 (2015). 

But what has really electrified the show are the performances by a number of top actors appearing in just one or two series, from Lennie James, Gina McKee, Jessica Raine, Daniel Mays, Craig Parkinson as “Dot” Cottan and Neil Morrissey in the early series to Jason Watkins, Thandie Newton and Stephen Graham in Series 4 and 5. Perhaps best of all were Keeley Hawes as DI Lindsay Denton (series 2–3) and Anna Maxwell Martin as the super-creepy Detective Chief Superintendent Carmichael, in each case among the best performances of their careers.  

Again, the contrast with Bodies is revealing. There were no interesting women in the hospital series, not one. Whereas Line of Duty has some of the best female characters in TV drama over the past twenty years. It’s not just that Mercurio has learned to write better dialogue and plots, he’s also learned to create fascinating women characters: good, bad and deeply complex. He has also learned how to create deep back stories, perhaps especially the story of sex abuse suffered as a child by Sergeant Danny Waldron (Daniel Mays) and the tragic childhood of the undercover cop, Detective Sergeant John Corbett (Stephen Graham). 

Then there’s the range of subjects covered by the series. AC-12 is meant to hunt down police corruption cases, but in five series it has moved from abused and neglected children to gang crime, race and Northern Ireland, all the time weaving one long, complicated plot line through the whole series, all about the mysterious “H”, corruption, gangs and organised crime. 

There’s one other dark story-line. All three central characters from AC-12 have sad, lonely private lives. Ted Hastings and Kate Fleming have seen their marriages fall apart. Steve Arnott lives alone, unable to find a partner and start a family, haunted by the injuries, mental and physical, he has suffered on duty.  

Not surprisingly, expectations are sky-high for the new series. It’s the most highly anticipated drama series of the year. There’s a new central character, Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Davidson (Kelly Macdonald), and rumours that this might be the final series, in which the identity of “H” may finally be revealed. But the first episode (of seven) was a dud. Not so much “sucking diesel” as running out of gas. Let’s hope it will pick up pace and Ted Hastings and his team will have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.   

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