Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Line of Duty

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

The BBC’s Line of Duty became an event. People put it in their calendar and made sure never to miss an episode. It was a true water cooler moment.

The quality of the writing, by Jed Mercurio, was one of the reasons that people watched, but there were other factors at play too. A stellar cast made the whole series crackle with tension and the set piece were beautifully nuanced and played to perfection.

The premise of the whole 6 series was simple. Line of Duty was based around the anti-corruption unit, AC-12, of the Central Police Force. Led by Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, they investigated police corruption in a single focused event for the length of each series. The officer under investigation was always played by someone who was well known to the British TV public as a quality actor. In series 1 we got DCI Tony Gates played by Lennie James, series 2, DI Lindsay Denton played by Keely Hawes, 3, Sergeant Danny Waldron played by Daniel Mays, 4 DCI Roseanne Huntley played by Thandiwe Newton, 5 DS John Corbett played by Stephen Graham and in the final episode, DCI Joanne Davidson played by Kelly MacDonald.

Added to the drama of each series was the core group which Hastings led. Vicky McClure played DC Kate Fleming who was the stellar under-cover officer and the 1st series saw Martin Compton, playing firearms officer, DS Steve Arnott arrive after Arnott had whistle blown corruption in his previous post. Add to that the overarching narrative that there was a corrupt organization within the police force led by a mysterious figure, H, and that at various times each of the three principal characters were accused and considered potentially corrupt themselves and there was plenty to keep you tuned in.

With two major supporting characters being Matthew “Dot” Cottan played by Craig Parkinson and DC Nigel Morton played by Neil Morrisey we had a couple of rogues hanging around to add to the intrigue. The explosive revelation and uncovering of Cottan, in particular, being a highlight moment for the series.

And how they tuned in. From a modest arrival in 2012, on BBC 2, it became their most successful drama series in 10 years. For four series it stayed on BBC 2, the less popular of the 2 terrestrial BBC channels whilst it gathered a plethora of awards. Series 5 and 6 moved to BBC 1 as the tracking down of H intensified and in the final episode of series 6, we found out who he was.

Like most British drama series, it was concentrated in six episodes per series focused on a single investigation so the quality of everything had to be very good indeed. There was not enough time to waste on frippery. It became famed for the intensive interrogation scenes using the latest in technology. The quality of the actors involved also heightened the effect of the drama. It led to many a comedy sketch and internet meme or voice overs making fun of many politicians found to be less than truthful during the pandemic, and then in their comic spinoffs being investigated by Arnott, Fleming and/or Hastings.

It also led to many mugs and t-shirts as the sayings of the head of the unit, Ted Hastings, a character from Dunbar’s native Northern Ireland was given to mutter phrases and sayings that achieved legendary status including “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and the wee donkey.”

Set in what looks suspiciously like Birmingham – all the phone numbers have that area code, there are maps of the city in the wall etc., etc. – but filmed, from series two, in Belfast it became the hit of British TV. Interestingly, officially the police forces in the UK refused to advise, though former officers and serving officers were apparently part of the background advice team.

Its authenticity is what gave it such a following and attracted, by the end of it all, criticism because the revelation of H was a damp squib. H turned out to be hidden in the ranks. Not some big wig who was pulling strings from a villa in the South of France but an ordinary copper. Some felt let down. Others, like me, just hope for a series seven. Much campaigned for and much wished for, it is still elusive…

Why? Because there are seminal television moments in Line of Duty which are just fantastic. They are treats. Each series had elements of mystery and conspiracies that were drawn out for you, gave you plenty to wonder about and then hit you with a revelation which you often did not see coming. The deeper you delved the more you found out and the more you wanted to know. It was masterful. For that it had stellar directors, with an exceptional core cast, brilliant casting for the supporting roles and a script that knew what it was and what it wished to deliver. It’s a standard set, and unfortunately, what has come will now be measured against it!

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television, you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…