Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Mark Strong, Daniel Mays, Carice van Houten, Catherine McCormack, Tobi King Bakare, Lily Newmark, Chloe Pirrie, Ryan McKen, Sienna Kelly, Clare Rushbrook, Sam Hazeldine, Wunmi Mosaku, Craig Parkinson, Marion Bailey, Hiten Patel, Anamaria Marinca, Carolina Main, Theo Solomon, Donald Sumpter, Kate Dickie, Turlough Convery, Rosy Nenjamin, Emma Carter, Naomi Cooper-Davis, Gabriel Gambetta, Jordan Long, Martin McCann, Mark Bazeley, Jo Hartley, Jan Bijvoet, Layo-Christina Akinlude, Adeyinka Akinrinade, Charles Armstrong, Josh Barrow, Daniel Betts, Cornelius Booth.
There are ways in which to watch a television programme and your evening will just be one of idle curiosity, of having the issues flow over you, the entertainment ignore you and the depth go skating by, going over your head as if such story-lines are there for just one thing, to get you through the evening by being force fed a diet of the fatty and indigestible; a programme or series that rubber stamps the idea of refusing to admit that the public are intelligent creatures, beaten down by the forced and the unworthy.
As with politics, we get the television we deserve, but occasionally a skilfully cut piece of writing will make it through the surgical field of debate and add huge layers to the problems of modern society and its relationship with science, whilst at the same time touching upon the notions laid down by the classic authors who studied their craft with precision.
Mary Shelley showed a monster off to the peak of human frailty, the result of unbridled ego, and his creation of the stitched together brute. It is in this reminder of fallibility, that Mark Strong’s portrayal of a surgeon brought into the underground world of illegal, unregistered surgery in the series Temple, that the belief of Mary Shelly’s scientist weaves through him, one of subtle humanity, not a god as some surgeons suffer undeniably with the public label, but that of playing with fire, the search for life in the modern age, the cure for a disease which takes its toll on civility.
As Mark Strong’s career has continued, so his in depth and insight to the character he is playing has increased, and as Dr. Daniel Milton, he is a man holding onto control whilst the fates conspire against him to take on the loose- fitting mantle of the imperfect mortal idol.
With superb support from Daniel Mays, Lily Newmark, who gives every questioning student reason to celebrate in particular episode where she proves that the best way to deal with the ignorant is not always by reason, and Anamaria Marinca as a trusting and willing victim of the need to bring life where death was adamantly present, Temple is a tale of the temptation of holding back the inevitable and the decay in our souls when we refuse to do so.
In a world where the need for spare parts, for organ donation, has become a topic of debate, Temple has the bravery to show how it can spiral out of control if not regulated; disturbing and riddled with dramatic concern.
Ian D. Hall