Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Sian Brooke, Martin McCann, Richard Dormer, John Lynch, Joanne Crawford, Jonathan Harden, Katherine Devlin, Nathan Braniff, Dane Whyte O’Hara, Hannah McClean, Andi Osho, Gerard Jordan, Valene Kane, Michael Shea, Nabil Elouahabi, Matt Carver, Matthew Forsythe, Abigail McGibbon, Clare Gray, Stefan Boehm, Isaac Heslip, Art Campion, Desmond Eastwood, Andrea Irvine, Paddy Jenkins, Frankie McCafferty, Orla Graham, Aoibheann McCann, Charlie Maher, Neil Keery, Shane McCaffrey, Antoinette Morelli, Maria Quinn, Packy Lee, Declan Lawn, Brian Milligan, Helena Bereen, Louise Parker, Bernadette Brown, Dearbhalle McKinny, Mary Moulds, Michael Patrick.
Being a police officer in today’s modern world makes The Blue Lamp, the 1950 British film starring Jack Warner and Dirk Bogarde, seem positively ancient, a relic consigned to age badly, and only fondly remembered by those with memories that stretch to a period when the law wasn’t routinely broken by those who defended the thin blue line.
To be a police officer takes a special kind of mind, to be a good officer means often turning a blind eye to the small stuff, and putting yourself on the line, and in a community that is out to destroy you, in a place where the thin blue line is a fox hole where you are shelled from both sides, it can be a thankless task, especially when there are darker forces at play who see you as collateral in their underhand fight to sow further discord in a place where they have no right to be.
Blue Lights has the hallmarks of a classic police drama even after one monumental series., The setting of Northern Ireland, its diverse cast who capture the emotions, the setbacks, the fear, and the occasional light moment of relief, and the seriously involved writing which drives the narrative onwards, makes sure it delivers a powerful statement when it confronts the harsh reality of being an officer of the law in a place where neither side of a political divide want you to help them.
Set against the fight against a family whose patriarch fought in The Struggles, the war, against the British before the Good Friday Agreement, Blue Lights looks at the ordinary people who find themselves in the continuing aftershock of peace, the sense of distrust that still lingers today, and the fallout when a dedicated officer, a man to whom compassion is a byword is killed doing his duty.
Seen through the eyes of three probationary constables in the PSNI, Blue Lights brings the fantastic Sian Brooke, Martin McCann, Richard Dormer, and John Lynch together in a six-part series filled with tension and heartbreak, of moments when the violence must be confronted by the viewer if they are too understand why there is still a long way to go in the resolution of joining the communities together.
An excellent series filled with questions, with uncertainty in the air, and one that will deservedly frame a narrative which deserves to be taken seriously.
Ian D. Hall