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The Street

Maxine Peake, Stephen Graham and Leon Harrop in The Street
  • Posted at 6:02pm
  • 14 August 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 6 comments

I've never been a fan of The Street. I've always thought it was aimed at armchair poverty tourists; people in velvet slippers who peer through their expensive spectacles at The Street's gallery of ill-used northerners shouting at one another in public. As our tourist reaches for a sunblushed tomato, he or she can be heard to murmur: "What ghastly people, how lucky we are not to live somewhere so horrid."

It's The Street's queasy mixture of the tough and the saccharine that I've never been able to get over, and the fact that its endings are always happy… and its prostitutes are impossibly lovely (Anna Friel)… and its drunks are thwarted poets who quote Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas (Stephen Graham).

In Graham's episode (10 August) he was Shay, an alcoholic betting shop owner whose life was disintegrating. Until ex-lover Madeleine (Maxine Peake) turned up and told him he had a 16-year-old son, Otto, who had Down's Syndrome. Otto was old enough to ask questions and he wanted to see his dad. Shay was receptive, and promised to give up drink. But he lapsed, again and again, until Otto ended up in hospital, having drunk some of his dad's ready-mixed vodka and coke.

The acting was tip-top. Graham, so good in Occupation, was riveting as Shay, a pint-sized ball of anger with a face like a tough, angry baby. Maxine Peake can never put a foot wrong in anything she does, and Leon Harrop, as Otto, was touching.

But it was dour and repetitive stuff; Shay repeatedly hit the skids, disappointing Otto and infuriating Madeleine until he was forced onto the streets, where he was rescued by a neighbour. Because there's always a Good Fairy in The Street.

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times

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Comments

  • Posted on 19 August 2009
  • at 5:05pm
  • by LauraPledger-RT

FAO sharonr - Unfortunately it looks as if there may not be a fourth series of The Street. If comments by series creator Jimmy McGovern are to be believed, the whole series is winding up on account of redundancies at ITV productions (formerly Granada), who make the series.

  • Posted on 18 August 2009
  • at 8:29pm
  • by Shaun

The Street has provide thought provoking drama for me. I am annoyed by those critics who seem to look no further than the story line. To compare the Bob Hoskins episode as a cheap high-noon is to completely miss the issues of Corporate bullying, alchohol vs social aspects of the pub community, and the fragility of freindship when a person is in a hole. Jimmy Mcgovern. You are a genious.

  • Posted on 18 August 2009
  • at 7:06pm
  • by Phil

Alison didn't get 'The Wire' either.

  • Posted on 18 August 2009
  • at 1:49pm
  • by sharonr

An outstanding piece of drama. Best I have seen in years. Superb acting by all members of the cast. Laughed and cried - well done to all those who made it the perfect production!!! Look forward to Series 4.

  • Posted on 18 August 2009
  • at 12:30pm
  • by Gauchito

Last Night's "Street" with Timothy Spall was the best TV drama I have seen in years. Everything, writing, direction, acting, camera work, production all magnificent. Spall surpassed himself. Should be a shoe in for the Baftas and well worth an Oscar if it was eligible. Far more memorable than the ten or twenty years of East Enders or any other soap

  • Posted on 17 August 2009
  • at 5:51pm
  • by Busybee81

I love the street, and I'm disappointed to find out that I only discovered it this series and now it seems to be ending. I find the producers' ability to make me feel angry, compassionate, uncomfortable and sorry for a host of different characters for different reasons is amazing.

A message to the BBC: it was as good as Survivors, is that going to make a return now we're in the swine flu epidemic?

I love having the ability to watch it on i-player if I've missed any and I'm going to look into buying the other 2 series

Thanks for great entertainment and I hope there's a way it can continue

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