'The Shadow Line' Review: Britain's answer to 'The Wire'

The Shadow Line (BBC2 Thursdays 9pm)

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Christopher Eccleston, Stephen Rea, Rafe Spall

Genre: Crime, thriller

When drug baron, Harvey Wratten, is founded shot dead in his car, it sparks a murder investigation on both sides of the law. Jonah Gabriel (Chiwetel Ejiofor) leads the team of police - but with the confusion of amnesia hanging over his head, he struggles to get to grips with both the case and himself. Meanwhile, Joseph Bede (Christopher Eccleston) is left to salvage what is left of his investment in the drugs business whilst keeping tabs on Wratten's unstable nephew, Jay (Rafe Spall). Dark, daring and softly but spectacularly scary, Hugo Blick's The Shadow Line is the best drama to hit British screens in some time.

Raw, gritty and irresistibly addictive, this thriller brings a whole new meaning to the word 'shadow'. Impossibly dark, slow and brooding, every man, woman and child in this programme is living under a shadow. Virtually silent throughout, but with tension rising to the occasional but powerful music, you'll be gripped by the eerie acting and stripped dialogue. With a complex network of characters and storylines, Blick blurs the boundaries between the good, the bad and the ugly. Four episodes in and I'm still none-the-wiser - but that won't have you wanting to stop watching.

The modern underworld of The Shadow Line is populated with damaged characters. There's the literal damage to Jonah, who has a stroke of convenient amnesia after getting a bullet lodged in his brain. There's the unstoppable onset of early Alzheimer's that Joseph's wife, Julie (Lesley Sharp) suffers from, and the probable mental instability of the young Jay Wratten. Hard-edged and ruthless, they nonetheless all have something to protect - reputation, money, love, or even the complete unknown - and their thirst for survival in a world of secrets makes for a thrilling watch.

With stand out performances from the likes of Rafe Spall and Stephen Rea as the late-appearing Gatehouse, Blick has on board an incredibly talented team of people to make such a slow-burning thriller work. Spall commands the screen, his distinctive voice and erratic behaviour make Jay Wratten a character to be feared. But the soothing power of Rea's Gatehouse is on another level altogether. Elusive, but calm and ever-the-gentleman, his enigmatic nature will have your eyes virtually sewn to your TV.

Everything in this drama reeks of hard work and intelligence - Hugo Blick has put his all into this one and it pays off. Stealthy, silent and sinister, this programme will pull you into the shadows before you've even had time to realise it. All I can say is, don't fight it - this is one underworld you need to be a part of.

Please comment if you have anything to add to this review of 'The Shadow Line'.

'Paul Merton's Birth of Hollywood' Review: because cinema deserves a history lesson

Paul Merton's Birth of Hollywood (BBC2, Friday 27th May 2011)

Starring: Paul Merton

Genre: Factual, arts, culture and the media

Paul Merton travels to America to explore and chart the birth of the most dominant cinematic power: Hollywood. He sets out to discover how the early movie technology, the people flooding to American shores and field after field of orange groves evolved into the star-studded community and billion-dollar industry of today. If you love going to our modern cinemas, why not immerse yourself in the history of how they came to be? Paul Merton's is a documentary complete with clips of the racist masterpiece that helped to re-establish the Klu Klux Klan and cheeky snippets of our beloved Charlie Chaplin.

For those with a taste for movies, many may have already studied the history of the moving image. Many of us, it remains to be said, will have not - Merton to the rescue. Cinema is an incredible art form that has advanced at colossal speed in the space of just one hundred years. It has developed from the haphazard silent wonders of The Great Train Robbery (1903) to the dazzling 3D spectacle of James Cameron's Avatar (2009). From the somewhat restrictive Kinetiscope, the first technology that enabled a person to look into its box and see a short film, cinema has become one of the most beloved and accessible arts of the modern age.

In this documentary, Paul Merton has selected the best of early cinema to explore and explain the transformation of a small Southern American hamlet into the iconic location of Hollywood. Intrigued by how a prolific orange-growing community could become the place-to-be for aspiring film-workers, Merton looks at the people responsible for its modern status. His often-cheeky approach to the old greats (let's face it, those jerky old films might have been impressive in their day but a man wrestling a dead bird is only ever going to be funny) celebrates the men and women behind and in front of the early cameras.

Thanks to the devastation of the First World War, the Europeans (the leaders in the development of early cinema) were prevented from going any further with their cinematic ambitions in the first part of the twentieth century. This made room for the Americans to lay the foundations for future of film. As it turned out, many of the most prominent figures were immigrants having left Europe to escape persecution and poverty. Paul Merton looks into their lives and careers and reveals to us how the roles of the director, cameraman, actor and producer began to take shape. This is a great documentary with access to an array of early footage that is as much a delight to watch now as I'm sure it was then. The bonus is, we don't have to sit through the initial three hours of ham-acting and brick fights to get to the best bits - Merton's done it for us.

Catch the next episode of 'Paul Merton's Birth of Hollywood' next Friday at 9:30pm.