CHRISTOPHER STEVENS on the weekend’s TV: Swedish remake more wooden than a Scandinavian pine forest!
Before We Die
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Anyone who doubts cocaine is now a middle-class obsession will be politely put right by Before We Die (Ch4), a drugs crime drama dripping with shopping-centre designer chic.
Set in Bristol’s Clifton Village, the West Country’s equivalent of Hampstead, it stars Kazia Pelka as Croatian gangster queen Dubravka, a woman who dresses in silk trouser suits like a Marks & Spencer fashion plate.
Whether she’s ordering the murder of an undercover policeman or facing down threats from her overlords in Zagreb, she always looks like she’s on her way to the John Lewis cafe for a pot of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge.
Her nemesis is detective Hannah Laing (Lesley Sharp), a woman determined to match Dubravka price tag for price tag. Her cream blouses and double-breasted beige jackets are so evidently from an upmarket department store, they’ve practically still got the electronic security clips attached.
True, Hannah doesn’t have an indoor swimming pool with £10 million of smuggled cocaine hidden in bin liners beneath it. But she has a glamorous kitchen with a marble-topped island so big it has its own Bristol postcode, and a living room with high Georgian ceilings and picture windows across acres of greenery.
Before We Die (Ch4) is a drugs crime drama dripping with shopping-centre designer chic
And when she visits her therapist, the session takes place on Royal York Crescent, Clifton’s most exclusive terrace. If only the script was as swish as the backdrop. Before We Die, a remake of a Swedish thriller, is more wooden than a Scandinavian pine forest.
Vincent Regan plays Hannah’s hard-bitten sidekick, a grizzled special forces veteran who happens to have a van crammed with equipment that can eavesdrop on any phonecall. But Billy is more interested in making puppy eyes at Hannah, begging her to forget about silly old organised crime rings and run away with him instead.
Hannah can’t do it. ‘I don’t think I’ve got space in my head or my heart for anything good right now,’ she says. And obviously she’s not going anywhere without an M&S nearby.
Princess Anne: The Plot To Kidnap A Royal
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The only way Before We Die could be more wooden would be to have a scale model like a railway diorama, with all the characters as tiny painted figurines in action poses. That’s the method used to depict the events outside Buckingham Palace in 1974, in Princess Anne: The Plot To Kidnap A Royal (Ch4).
Instead of filming reconstructions with actors, the documentary staged the botched attack with toy figures. Some of those who were there (though not the Princess Royal nor her then husband, Captain Mark Phillips) moved the models around to explain how the action unfolded.
Anne’s protection officer, Jim Beaton, picked up his figure and examined it wryly. ‘Might be a bit He-Man looking, but apart from that it’s OK,’ he said.
Princess Anne: The Plot To Kidnap A Royal (Ch4) depicts the events outside Buckingham Palace in 1974 using tiny painted figurines (Pictured: Ronnie Russell (left) and Jim Beaton)
Instead of filming reconstructions with actors, the documentary staged the botched attack with toy figures
Jim’s courage was as remarkable as his modesty. As the would-be kidnapper Ian Ball held up the royal limo on the Mall, he flung himself out of the car. Ball shot him in the chest: ‘There was this flash and bang, it was just like a tap from a cricket ball, and I realised I’d been shot.’
The bodyguard drew his own gun, a Walther PPK, but it jammed. ‘I thought, “Ooops,”’ he said. Ball shot him again, in the hand and then the abdomen. Jim’s last thought, as he collapsed, was that he was wearing a new suit and didn’t want to get it dusty.
The courage of passers-by who intervened was breathtaking, too. But it was Anne whose cool won through. Refusing to get out of the car, she told Ball: ‘Go away, you silly man.’
Now that’s dialogue.
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