Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 08:21:07 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Responder (Martin Freeman cop drama)

Started by Ballad of Ballard Berkley, January 24, 2022, 10:33:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

This started tonight on BBC One. Tim from The Office stars as an urgent police response officer having a nervous breakdown on the mean streets of Liverpool. Ian Hart (wearing a ridiculous curly wig) turns up as a vicious drug dealer. Everyone says "mate" a lot while looking anguished.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0b61z9j/the-responder

I know that sounds like a standard Gritty BAFTA drama, but it's surprisingly funny at times. Deliberately so. The author is a former cop, but it doesn't romanticise police work in the slightest. The message isn't "Say what you like about the police, but they do a decent job under very trying circumstances." It's more: "Being in the police is shit and futile, the world is fucked and nothing will ever be done to help the most vulnerable members of society."

But you know, with some jokes thrown in. You've gotta laugh while staring into the abyss.

Anyway. I enjoyed it. Freeman is excellent in a role that seems tailor-made for Stephen Graham, but apparently it was written with Freeman in mind. Casting an actor best known for playing lovable everymen works in its favour, as you never quite know where you are with this character. He's probably fundamentally decent, but he's also a potentially violent nihilist struggling with mental health issues.

It's portrayal of depression, anxiety and addiction is sensitively handled, but never sentimental. There are shades of Jimmy McGovern and Shane Meadows peppered throughout, although it's obviously not quite in their league. Still good though.

Mobius

I hadn't heard of this, thanks!

This sounds a bit better than "Trigger Point" at least

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Trigger Point is dreadful, I agree. No, ITV, it isn't your Line of Duty at all, despite what you keep telling us. Having Vicky McLure in the cast isn't enough (and I thought the last series of LoD was shite, but that's by the by).

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Bits of this filmed in top Lisa Jesusandmarychain hometown of St. Helens, dontchya know. The depressed Scouse copper part sounds like a part that should * by law* be played by Stephen Graham, so interesting to see the part given to Tim from " The Office", will be trying to find a way to watch this, to see how good his performance is, along with the authenticity of his Scouse accent.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Hey, good old dependable Scouse actor Warren Brown's also in this! Along with the likes of watchable old actor David Bradley and fucking RITA TUSHINGHAM!
Right, I'm deffo going to try to watch this, and no mistake!

studpuppet

I thought all coppers on active duty had to be in pairs at least, to avoid exactly the situation he's in, but consider my beret rodgered.

gilbertharding

They definitely used to go about in pairs, but I thought that was to save on torch batteries.

Evenin' all.

Thomas


Mister Six


Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Whenever I see a Liverpudlian with hair like that it inevitably leads me to think of the three scousers from the Harry Enfield sketches. Or Alan Davies.

studpuppet

Quote from: gilbertharding on January 25, 2022, 02:55:39 PMThey definitely used to go about in pairs, but I thought that was to save on torch batteries.

Evenin' all.


Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Could someone explain "wooly" to me please? I used to think it meant anyone from the Northwest of England (excluding Manchester) not blessed enough to be from the glittering metropolis that is Liverpool, but then I heard it levelled at Sean Bean's character in Time, the prison drama from last year, and Sean Bean is a professional Sheffield. Where exactly do the wooly boundaries lie? The copper from Warrington got called it. I live in Preston, so I'm definitely in the heartland.

Also, why wool? Why not cotton?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

" Woolyback" from market trading times when people from the North West and outside of Liverpool would , I presume carry sheep on their back for market trading purposes. I dunno how the good people of Liverpool transported their sheep to market, or, indeed, if they dealt in sheep at all.
I also like how the people of Liverpool are nicknamed after a foodstuff they like eating. A more parochial instance of the French referring to we English as" Roast Beef Cunts".

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Warrington to Liverpool is a very long way if you're carrying a sheep. Maybe they had rest stops.

Bernice

#14
Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on January 26, 2022, 08:17:05 AMCould someone explain "wooly" to me please? I used to think it meant anyone from the Northwest of England (excluding Manchester) not blessed enough to be from the glittering metropolis that is Liverpool, but then I heard it levelled at Sean Bean's character in Time, the prison drama from last year, and Sean Bean is a professional Sheffield. Where exactly do the wooly boundaries lie? The copper from Warrington got called it. I live in Preston, so I'm definitely in the heartland.

Also, why wool? Why not cotton?

The boundaries of what makes a wool expand according to how parochial the speaker is. As a man of the world, I'd say your bolted on wools are from any part of Merseyside outside of the Liverpool Metropolitan Borough, with the exceptions of Bootle, Huyton and Halewood, which are definitely Scouse, and maybe other parts of Knowsley too (all of it if you're being generous). I'd also add in the north-western bits of Cheshire - Runcorn (soz John Bishop, you're not Scouse), Chester, Warrington and their neighbouring villages.

Skem and Ormskirk definitely, Preston's a push. If you include that surely you've got to add in the likes of Blackpool and Wigan, which feels wrong but I've seen them given, Clive.

But the more insular the speaker, the wider that net gets cast. Manchester? Wools. Sheffield? Bad wools. Scotland? Porridge wools. France? Garlic wools etc and so on.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Rock and Roll is full of bad wools too, of course.

Lost Oliver


jobotic


Quote from: Mobius on January 24, 2022, 10:38:24 PMI hadn't heard of this, thanks!

This sounds a bit better than "Trigger Point" at least

Trigger Point was alright - especially once you realised about 15 minutes in just how that first episode was going to end. They got the bomb-disposal/tactics side of things down reasonably well, too many people wandering around in slate grey balaclavas, not sure how you get 6 episodes out of it.

Also pleasantly surprised by Hidden Assets, on BBC4. Joint Irish-Belgian copper thing.



Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Who is that extremely attractive lady on the right? Is it yer woman from " The Commitments"? She's got me " responding" right enough, I'm made up to see that picture, I don't mind telling you.

buzby

#20
Quote from: jobotic on January 26, 2022, 09:47:24 AMWhat are people from Southport called?
Tory bastards, as they are the only part of Merseyside that votes in Tory MPs.
Southport lost it's county borough status within Lancashire in 1971, so instead of being governed from Lancaster as part of Lancashire County Council, they lobbied to get included in Merseyside to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. However they got put into the borough of Sefton along with Bootle. Southport have never stopped moaning since about how their rates/council tax gets spent on the feckless scum of Bootle, and have been trying to get out of Merseyside and back into Lancashire ever since.

Also, you have heard Lisa's St. Helens view of the origin of the term Woolyback, but in Liverpool the story is slightly different. It relates to scab labour brought into the city from outside during docker's strikes in the early 1900s, who didn't have the docker's standard 'donkey jacket' with leather across the shoulders and so their jackets would get covered in wool when carrying the bales off the ships. The other is from men delivering coal into the city from the mines around St. Helens, Warrington and Ormskirk wore sheepskin pads on their shoulders to protect them whern carrying the sacks.

These days for the Ultra Scouser who doesn't consider Sefton (Bootle) and Knowsley (Kirkby, Huyton and Halewood) as part of Liverpool (which technically they aren't)  it's more to do with what colour your bin is. Liverpool council's wheelie bins are purple. Knowsley's are maroon and Sefton's are grey. Getting asked what colour your bin is in Liverpool is like being asked what team you support in Glasgow. There is actually a pretty good argument for this, as Sefton includes Southport, Formby and parts of rural Lancashire where they definitely do not speak with a Scouse accent, and similarly Knowsley includes Kirkby and Huyton (which have possibly the thickest Scouse accents there are) and Halewood, but also includes Prescot, Wjhiston and Cronton, which are definitely Woolyback territory.

Bernice is right in that Runcorn, Widnes and West Warrington (lots of people moved out of Liverpool and bought houses in Penketh and Sankey in the 1980s) are definitely Plastic Scouse territory (East Warrington is definitely Woolyback, and they identify more with Manchester anyway), as is the Wirral (or the northern bits at least where they have a Scouse-like accent).

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: jobotic on January 26, 2022, 09:47:24 AMWhat are people from Southport called?

Cunts. With A Crap Holiday Camp ( which may have been long since closed down).

jobotic


Lisa Jesusandmarychain


buzby

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on January 26, 2022, 11:04:21 AMCunts. With A Crap Holiday Camp ( which may have been long since closed down).
Pontins is still very much open (2/5 stars on TripAdvisor), though I think it survives on those 'Weekender' retro music events nowadays.


jobotic


dr beat

Quote from: jobotic on January 26, 2022, 09:47:24 AMWhat are people from Southport called?

I think they call themselves Sandgrounders. 

beanheadmcginty

They really ought to have given Sinbad from Brookside a scimitar rather than a sword in episode 2.