Law & Order

Nearly forty years (!) after its initial release, 'G.F Newman's Law & Order' shocked contemporary audiences with an uncompromising account of corruption and malpractice (or standard practice?) within the police force, courts and prison systems. Banned for forty years after a storm of contraversy in Parliament and media - at one point there was serious debate on prosecuting Newman for sedition - this mini-series was recently screened on BBC 4, a year or two after a long overdue release on DVD.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Centring on three characters - the cunning, animalistic 'thief taker' DI Fred Pyall (Derek Martin); cock of the walk local hard man/blagger Jack Lynn (Peter Deane), a family man with a mean streak, now target for Pyall's machinations; amoral solicitor Alex Gladwell (Ken Campbell) who cheerfully advises, and takes backhanders from, crook and copper alike - and, yes, the distinction is that thin, especially from a trio of actors on top form.

Perhaps it sounds terribly clichéd these days but trust me it is not. It puts the average cop pot boiler hystronics firmly in the shade. Obviously, many things have changed since the original broadcast - but not without much scandal and contraversy, despite fierce criticsm from the naysayers at the time.

This mini-series should be compulsary for every police officer, lawyer, law student, journalist and filmmaker. G.F.N's Law & Order did what good television should do - ask disquieting questions and spark an overdue debate.

Finally released on DVD in April 2009, well worth the long wait too.

Totally compelling TV, numerous short clips in many documentaries over the years gave a small indication of the superior nature of this drama, I can tell you those indication were entirely correct.

Extras include a 25 min film on the making on the series and the effects it had, on TV drama and on the body politic.

This is no mere 'bash the police' work, it's far more complex than that, more of a 'plague on all your houses' for the justice system, prison system and criminal classes too.

The tone, acting dialogue all ring true-the latter within the constraints of the watershed for swearing at the time (though it was still attacked for this and many who saw it thought it was far worse than it actually was).

For me, another stark element of Law And Order is just how Britain, London, looked in the late 1970's. Without the tedious and contrived shots of famous London landmarks-Big Ben, Tower Bridge etc, that are often inserted into shows in assuming an international audience is stupid, the drabness of the streets is so apparent.

I've noticed this too with The Sweeney (Euston Films tended to film outside scenes with as little 'dressing' as possible), the greyness of London suburban high streets, fewer cars-fewer people too, less advertising, drab shops. At night, in Law and Order, the streets look to us now, something like London in the blackout of world war 2, shops nearly all closed in the later afternoon, fewer places to eat out. One suspects that then, the only brightly lit parts of London were Piccadilly Circus and the clubs, sex shops and strip joints of Soho.

This adds to the general atmosphere of Law and Order, a lot is made of detectives, as a matter of routine, taking 'bungs' from recovered stolen money, insurance scams, payoffs from informants. Not to excuse this, but in 1977/8, when this series was made and shown, the police were poorly paid. (One of the first things the Thatcher government did was to change this, there may have been an element of anticipating using them later to bust mass strike action, however it's just as likely that trying to break the practices shown in this series was also a factor).

However, nothing is for nothing, from the early 80's, the laws and procedures concerning interviewing of suspects, evidence, public prosecutions, was radically changed. Whatever your political views, this was an overdue change, given that a few years before, Law and Order had provoked fury amongst many politicians and other parts of the establishment, which then settled into some soul searching, this superb piece of drama, made without excessive controls and constraints, maybe played a small part in this change.

In any case, if you want highly absorbing, gritty, realistic and now with a 30 year hindsight, fascinating historic drama, I cannot recommend G.F. Newman's Law and Order highly enough. Like the adverts for Coca Cola at the time - it's the real thing.

How to describe this mini-series - how about trying? While the idea of taking a set of circumstances and looking at them from different angles is by no means new, usually we are shown only two perspectives, here the viewer is given four, hence the word trying.

People who know about bent coppers, especially the way they were in the 1970s, will probably agree with the way they are portrayed here, but the portrayal of prison officers is more than a little uncharitable; they do a difficult job, and discipline must be maintained especially in those prisons that house the most dangerous and ruthless offenders. The lawyers including the barristers and the crotchety old judge are well characterised.

The villain at the centre of "Law & Order" may have been fitted up for the big one, but he had clearly been making a living at the expense of others for many years, so don't shed too many tears for him.

To make proper sense of this film you really need to watch all four segments, but to enjoy it, don't watch it in one sitting.

This superb series now seems to be lost forever - at least, I have found no way of viewing it again. Shot it a style which appears convincingly to be a documentary, it tells the story of London blagger Jack Lynn from four different perspectives: the detective's tale, the villain's tale, the brief's tale and finally the prisoner's tale. The cops are bent and Lynn is 'well overdue' for a bit of porridge, so DI Fred Pyall fits him up for an armed robbery. Despite his protests of innocence, Lynn is duly convicted and gets, I think, a seven stretch. We see him at the end languishing in jail for a crime he had nothing to do with. At least that's my recollection of it - I saw it once (in 1978) and have been yearning to see it again ever since. (This was in the days before VCRs.)

This beautifully and cleverly researched series of three separate plays touched a sensitivity at the time; and history has proved that it was not too far from the mark. It was shown on BBC2 in 1978. THIS SHOULD BE RELEASED ON VIDEO/DVD before this magnificent 'tour de force' is lost forever.

Three stories; the Detective's Tale, The Villains Tale and the prisoner's Tale. Each character's situation, raison d'etre is explored ruthlessly by Newman and each character's flaws and mind sets contribute to a withering examination of the legal profession, the police and villainy in general.

The story was broadcast at the time of the notorious 'Countryman' country-wide police enquiry (mischevious timing perhaps) and made the whole country think again about the truth that some (very) few, police officers had become a law unto to themselves. Beautifully scripted with wry humour.

The actual story has three central characters Jack Lynn (villain), Alex Gladwell (lawyer) and the magnificent Inspector Pyle of the Met.Police, who produces the ultimate portrayal of a bent detective, a classic example of a good detective, gone wrong.

The background is an armed robbery that went wrong but had sufficient substance in it to enable Pyle to fit up Jack Lynn.

There are no heroes in this film.

This play will anger, frustrate, disturb and uncomfortably amuse.