Comics

I must lay my cards on the table and say that I have found Lynda La Plante the most overrated scriptwriter of the late 20th century . She's at best very average who was lucky enough to have often worked with Verity Lambert who is probably the greatest TV producer of the late 20th century . With a dynamic and ground breaking producer like Lambert at the helm it's almost impossible for something like this to fail , but the credit should be given to the producer or director , not the scriptwriter

COMICS opens with a young boy called Johnny Lazar seeing the fate of his mother to the strains of Stay With Me Baby . This sequence is grand , operatic and I promise a shiver will go down your spine when watching it . However as the next scene jumps forward twenty years to Johnny as an adult it becomes very clear that the opening sequence with its superb direction and great production values is very disposable and unnecessary

Johnny Lazar is now a stand up comedian in America but because of his attitude finds himself unemployable and on the run from loan sharks so he buys a one way ticket to London where he is witness to a murder . Again there's little niggling things about this script that jump out at you . Lazar can't find work in America but gets booked on Michael Aspel's chatshow . When did totally unknown stand up comics appear on Aspel's show I wonder ? Especially foul mouthed crazy guys like Lazar ? There's also a ridiculous resolution to the ending that involves a chase involving Lazar and the bad guy which had me screaming " Why didn't you jump out of the car you idiot ? " . The answer is simple of course - Because Lynda La Plante couldn't be bothered coming up a decent ending

It's said that if a movie's good it's because of the director and if a movie's bad it's because of the screenwriter . I wouldn't say COMICS is bad since it has a legendary producer ( Would DOCTOR WHO have been a success without Lambert ? , a high budget and a good director but I doubt it wouldn't have been made if it was scripted by an unknown writer

Comics is the story of a wise talking, stand up comedian from New York who is sent to London because of his lack of respect for 'authority'etc... On arrival he witnesses a gangland murder and is hunted down which causes nightmares from his past to resurface. The film is written by Linda La Plante, one of British television's most prolific writers. Although it doesn't sound too original, it is definitely one of the best contemporary mini- series to come out of Britain in years. Unfortunately, nobody else has seen it. It also has an excellent central performance from the highly under rated Tim Guinee (Vampire$, Blade, the pompatus of love).

This is probably the only drama that I have not erased since I recorded it in '93, and have seen it at least four times. Splendid acting performance from the entire cast, particularly Tim Guinee and Lennie James in the roles of Johnny and Delroy respectively. Tearjerking in parts (the mood helped along effectively by Ruby Turner's haunting tune "Stay With Me Baby"), hilarious in others (Johnny's comedic routine written by Mark Thomas amongst others), if you are not moved by this wonderful drama then you are not human.