In the year of Our Lord 1974....

The first installment of "Red Riding", Channel Four's much publicised adaptation of David Peace's Red Riding Quartet was broadcast last night.

I've been looking forward to it since I first read about the project a couple of months back, having read the first three books in the series 1974, 1977 and 1980 and being just about to start 1983.

I suppose it's always a problem if you've read the book to make a objective judgement on the screenplay, but in all honesty it left me feeling a little flat, which was strange since it had all the elements of a really cracking crime drama. No Life on Mars humour here, played out to a Ziggy Stardust soundtrack. This was the ugly underbelly of the gritty industrial north. The West Riding's version of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven". A place where there are no good guys, from the corrupt politicians, to the bent coppers, to the tired alcoholic old hacks in the local rag, to the questionable morals of the young hotshot reporter. Bastards to a man.

I must admit some of the cinematography was beautiful. Whether it was the brutal modernist concrete architecture or the Vauxhall Magnum making its' way under the leaden sky, the camera work really contributed to the feeling of suffocating claustrophobia. The feeling that there was no escape. Of course having read the book I knew things were going to end badly and there really was no escape. Certainly no happy ending. This was real life, not some glossy US crime series where the good guys get their man. Or was it?

Reality's a funny thing. The emergency services, or anyone generally who comes into regular day-to-day contact with traumatic situations will always use humour to get themselves through. It's not because of any disrespect for the dead or the bereaved. It might not be appropriate, but it is a defence mechanism. Take that away and like David Peace's characters we'd all crawl inside a bottle and drink ourselves into oblivion. It might be compelling writing, but real life it ain't.

That said, I'll still be watching the other two parts of the trilogy (why wasn't 1977 adapted?) and have already pre-ordered the DVD. I'm also looking forward to the cinema release of The Damned United at the end of the month.