Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Holliday Grainger, Paapa Essiedu, Ben Miles, Lia Williams, Ron Perlman, Cavin Clerkin, Ginny Holder, Nigel Lindsay, Peter Singh, Lewis Kirk, Daisy Waterstone, Charlie Murphy, Indira Varma, Andy Nyman, Tessa Wong, Natalie Drew, Joseph Arkley, Harry Michell, Keira Chansa, Jack Sandle, Rob Yang, Joseph Steyne, Darren Bancroft, Angus Wright, Claire Price, Sam Hoare, Chris Corrigan, Ocean M Harris, Amy Conachan, Gemma Dyllen, Kammy Darweish, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Cory Peterson, Archie Costelloe, John King, Bonnie Baddoo, John King, Christopher Torretto, Andrew Joshi, Sandra James-Young, Henry Goodman, Joanna Burnett, David Yip.
The best of television series are those that leave you gob-smacked, that leave you with a welt on your cheek as they hit you with the realisation of what you have just encountered, willingly exposing your face and your mind to the enormity of the vision taking place and what the message is not just showing you, but insisting that you remember forever.
Any art that can leave you hanging on every second of its exposure to your soul as it builds to a crescendo, a tsunami of reveal and of drama, has a case to be thought of as extraordinary, and as the moment comes in the second series of the lauded series The Capture, what has transpired leaves the viewer breathless, the sheer scope of how a country can lead down a path of surveillance, of accepting a truth passed by government and which threatens every liberty we have left…that is moment in which if you haven’t woken up to how we have become accustomed to the totalitarian state, then you are just as complicit as those who lie to you, who bind you, who have ensnared you in their digital trap.
If the first series was simply captivating, this second series of Ben Chanan’s immense and deeply thought-out drama is to be seen as one of the most startling and pinpoint accurate of tragedy and compliance ever devised; for it is a tragedy wrapped in the fierce debate of national security, but one with the genuine glimmer of hope that a single politician can stand the scrutiny of physical correction, aided by a dedicated officer of the law, and allow the curtain of shadow play to be played out in the light.
With Holliday Grainger reprising her role as DCI Rachel Carey with insight and perception, Lia Williams adding a Lady Macbeth like figure, whispering in the ears of those higher up that they can attain greatness whilst herself above suspicion, Ron Perlman in great form as Frank Napier, and rising star Paapa Essiedu as the inscrutable Member of Parliament Isaac Turner, the cast is to be considered as near perfect as can be held in such a prestigious drama.
The Capture is compelling television, it is high drama in its most excellent form, a story of a crime that foretells the evil that can be brought into our lives if we are not vigilant, if we allow ourselves to remain aloof to the disease of reckless inattention. For the wheels of fascism take many roads, and we must remain on constant guard if we are not to follow those who would dictate our lives and who have the means to erase us from society.
Ian D. Hall