Life On Mars

Thanks to the free stuff still coming through my door from Amazon, I have at last caught up with Episode Four of the beyond splendid Life On Mars. It was as emotionally powerful, superbly acted and solidly told as the rest of the series. It is also the only prime time program I have ever watched featuring a scene of a naked policeman handcuffed to a bed having a LSD trip involving a demonic Basil Brush to a soundtrack of Hawkwind’s Silver Machine.

I could rave for England about how good Life On Mars is. I put it up with Edge of Darkness, State of Play and Doctor Who as amongst the best things BBC1 has produced to enrich our dramatic culture. This is not just because is a program based around time travel, explaining why the police are known as filth and heavily referencing Bowie, it really is a new benchmark in prime time TV. I would not be alone in this opinion. From Alexi Sayle to the editorial team of SFX, the show seems to have a legion of fans. I am not sure my love of it comes from the same place as them, but one of the things I adore about it is its honesty about the England in 1970s.

Life on Mars perfectly captures the concrete brutality of the decade. The way the washed out colour of life went alongside orange nylon shirts. The broken dreams of the white heat of technology mired in a failing economy. Why Findus Crispy Pancake would be counted as an exotic, expensive treat in the average working class home. It portrays some of the harshness of being on the breadline I remember from my childhood. It never forgets how grim things could be in a rush towards cheap nostalgia. It is also resolutely not afraid to show the era’s easy sexism, racism and homophobia. It is as good as Haine’s How I Learned To Love The Bootboys or Temple’s The Filth and the Fury for holding up a dark mirror to the seventies.

At first, I was a nervous about the idea of policemen as bastards being so entertaining. That evaporated with a second viewing. I realised the integrity of the depiction of the police’s anti-union views is not compromised by having characters with motivations you can empathise with. DCI Gene Hunt cares about his community. He really does believe that being a vicious, corrupt sheriff is the way to preserve law and order. I do not think that such a generous motivation can be laid behind most bent coppers and travesties of justice of the period, but within the show it works. The emotional life and validity of its characters is a core part of why Life On Mars so outstanding.

I cannot wait for second series. I want it not only to take the temporal mystery and paradoxes on further, but also focus more on racism, the response to IRA bombings and Masonic sleaze level that were all part and parcel policing in the seventies. If you have not already seen it, I thoroughly recommend Life On Mars and can only quote Bowie himself: ‘Take a look at the lawman …’