The Hour

“The Devil is in the detail” says Freddie the newshound at one point in The Hour’s hour, and he’s right.  Every set, every costume is painstakingly recreated, as though daring a challenge.  It looks telly-land perfect, which is to say that most of the usual signposts for 50s London are there, but the people look younger and better-dressed than they ever do elsewhere.  It’s a tough balance to make a programme look *wow, so old-fashioned!* and yet not alienate the viewers with the less sexy attributes of the period.  (Where are the ubiquitous hats and gloves?)  The advance publicity seemed to present it as a British version of ‘Mad Men’ with a dash of ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, the 2005 Clooney/Downey Jr film about CBS news during the McCarthy era.  This did it no favours as far as anyone with an inkling of knowledge about 50s Britain is concerned: Manhattan was glamorous in the 1950s and early 1960s, and perceived as such.  London was not. 

The cast do their best against the yesteryear scenery.  Ben Whishaw (Freddie) has a natural look of someone who is hard done by and prepared to whine incessantly about it.  This has served him well in his career so far (‘Brideshead Revisited’ and ‘Criminal Justice’ to name but two) and does so here.  Abi Morgan had better give him ample opportunity to shine or he will remain thin in all senses of the word.  As for Romola Garai, nobody does ‘gutsy woman in a man’s world’ quite like her, whether she’s playing a fortune-hunting Victorian miss, a fortune-hunting Victorian prostitute, or as here, the producer of a news programme in the exciting new world of television.  And lest we forget that Dominic West isn’t from Baltimore, or serial-killer Fred, here he is as a suave (but not as suave as he thinks he is) presenter who has married his way to success.

So far, so fun nostalgic news drama, but this has a murder with cold-war political/spy undertones thrown in.  It’s an odd hybrid, with as much tonal difference as black-and-white to glorious technicolour.  So far our only link is Freddie, and the stage would appear to be set for a pleasant few hours of conspiracy-hunting, risking life and career and ultimately transforming the state of Britain and its news.  Phew!  Let’s hope they pull it off.  We have a list of visual clichés, made before we watched, and we’re hoping to reach the end without ticking them all off.  (Dan won the bingo: housekeeper, gentlemen-only drinking establishment...)  The dialogue is smart and sharp, so no need for story cues like rehearsing interviews in the mirror, the chatty newsman and the sudden realisation of (un)likely hiding places.

Whether you love or hate it, though, you can neither miss nor fault the BBC’s great timing in airing a series all about the emergence of challenging television journalism just as the Sky Corporation’s cracks are appearing and our fine police and politicians are being sucked right into them.  Opposition, independence, public service – more please!