Mauras Rache

Dangerous Lady is an excellent four part series from the pen of Martina Cole.

It tells the story of The Ryan family, a group of gangsters, comprising six brothers, and one sister.

It looks amazing, it's a lavish drama, which is wonderfully atmospheric and moody, the music accompanies the series very well.

The development of Mickey and Maura across the four parts is impressive, you may start off thinking this is going to be the Jason Isaacs show, and he is great, but the standout her is definitely Susan Lynch. A great cast, and lots of familiar faces.

It's aged well, it doesn't look twenty five years old today.

Very watchable, 8/10.

This was the first vehicle in which I remember seeing Jason Isaacs and his treatment of his character left a lasting impression on me. To me, it's a testament to his talent that he could make such an unpleasant individual sympathetic and, at times, vulnerable. As mentioned in an earlier crit, the unusual presentation of a drab and colourless sixties really creates an atmosphere of sordidity and the authentic sets added to this (...don't you just HATE it when you mumble under your breath '..and that wallpaper's wrong for the time too...'). The impressive cast guaranteed excellent performances all round but, for me, Isaacs took the gong. (I was particularly pleased to later discover he is a fellow Scouser!) Dangerous Lady is available on video at Amazon.co.uk. Buy it. It's good.

A really good film noir style mini-series covering subjects that aren't normally treated on TV, at least not so unsaccharin as this. The two leads are really top-notch and Jason Isaccs especially good as an icy, over-restrained psychopath. He manages at the same time to give the character tremendous sympathy - not easy when you're a brutal gangster. The period is also caught unusually well, catching the drabness of the sixties in Britain, instead of portraying it as a really hip time when everyone wore psychedelic clothes and sung Beatles tunes. Highly recommended - I just wish that they would issue it on video. Distributors please take note!