First viewed : June 1991
At the peak of his fame, Alan Bleasdale came up with this seven part political epic for Channel Four. The series was loosely inspired by events in Liverpool during the eighties with the antihero, Michael Murray, being a rough substitute for notorious Militant leader Derek Hatton.
The cast featured a number of Bleasdale regulars ( Andrew Schofield, Julie Walters, Tom Georgeson, Michael Angelis, Alan Igbon ) but the main parts went to Robert Lindsay as Murray, showing what would happen if Wolfie Smith did get into power, and Michael Palin as the saintly Labour moderate, Jim Nelson, who stands up to him.
The Byzantine plot had Murray locking horns with Nelson because the latter refuses to abandon his special needs charges and observe the militants' Day of Action. Murray believes himself to be a free agent but he is really being manipulated by MI5 out to destroy the credibility of the far left. They employ Barbara ( Lindsay Duncan ) to further destabilise him as she has a connection to a shameful childhood secret ( the weakest link in the plot ) he tries to hush up.
I didn't follow it religiously but kept watching bits on a Sunday night repeat and had a general idea of what was going on.
The critics adored it and were outraged at the start of the year when BAFTA gave its Best Drama Series award to Prime Suspect instead. I think BAFTA have been proved right over the years as the Prime Suspect brand has remained potent while G.B.H. is now half-forgotten. Perhaps Bleasdale and his supporters over-estimated how interesting the travails of the Labour party were to the general public. Unless he pulls a surprising late rabbit out of the hat, this is certainly the high watermark for Bleasdale. I don't recall his next two series at all and his bizarre adaptation of Oliver Twist in 1999 heralded a decade out of the spotlight.
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