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Single-Handed

Owen McDonnell as as Garda Sergeant Jack Driscoll in Single-Handed
  • Posted at 4:05pm
  • 30 July 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 4 comments

We all know what to expect from Sunday night dramas, don't we? They are the TV equivalent of shortbread - colourless and bland, yet at the same time over-sweet to the point where if you have too many, you end up feeling sick.

Heartbeat… Ballykissangel…The Royal…Hope Springs…all no more than mildly diverting (although I have a strange, inexplicable fondness for The Royal) and more than a bit twee. Or in the case of Hope Springs, just flipping clichéd and awful.

A chocolate-box rural location is also essential to any Sunday night drama, lots of rolling hills and fields, sparsely populated by cunning local halfwits who never allow any outsider to get the better of them.

I had all of these prerequisites jostling around in my head as I approached Single-Handed, ITV1's new Sunday night drama. (Though not that new, it was first shown by Irish broadcaster RTE in 2006.) It ticks every box - pretty location (rural Ireland) with a nice policeman at its heart (Garda Sergeant Jack Driscoll, played by Owen McDonnell) who has his eye on a comely lass.

Who could blame me for expecting a less-than-gripping tale about a sheep that's fallen down a well, or the hunt for someone who's robbed the village toffee shop armed only with a cucumber? Or perhaps some comedy shenanigans involving a toothless shanty-dwelling stereotype?

But - crikey! Single-Handed is more Wallander (or should that be O'Wallander?) than Hamish Macbeth. It's dark, dark, dark and not at all cloying. AND there's swearing. Eek! Is the world still spinning on its axis - swearing in a Sunday night rural police drama!

I suppose I shouldn't have been too taken aback as a close inspection of Single-Handed's background reveals that it's from the people who gave us The Vice, that painfully, remorselessly bleak crime series starring Ken Stott that ended a few years ago.

The central story is as downbeat as you can get. A young woman is found dead in a grotty caravan in the middle of nowhere. She died from carbon monoxide poisoning and it looks like murder. As Driscoll investigates, he discovers that the young woman, an immigrant, has been badly treated and exploited by the locals.

But that's not all. Oh no. This first part of Single-Handed is Mary Poppins compared with what finally unfolds. If you've seen it when you read this, you'll know what I mean - if you haven't, then I won't spoil the surprise. But let me tell you, this kind of thing never happened on Hamish Macbeth.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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Comments

  • Posted on 24 August 2009
  • at 1:28pm
  • by mick

vary good i hope its come back

  • Posted on 19 August 2009
  • at 8:52pm
  • by laura

Its a great programme cant wait for it come out dvd,also think owen mc donnell is really sexy in that garda uniform

  • Posted on 01 August 2009
  • at 8:40pm
  • by Peter Jack

It's good to see a police drama set in Eire. A part of these islands that is rather ignored on TV.

Hope it is successful

  • Posted on 01 August 2009
  • at 6:01pm
  • by eric

Must watch

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