Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Rebus – Entertainment News

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

John Rebus is a man you don’t mess with. You don’t even mess with the casting when he is to be played on television. Scottish Television did and cast the wrong man as him…

It led to a change in who played the titular character after the first series. It was a change demanded by the public and lapped up by them thereafter as Ken Stott took charge and showed just why the gritty detective should be played by an equally weather worn and gritty actor. It was what we all suspected – perfect casting.

Rebus is a Scottish institution. The creation of Ian Rankin, it stands out as an example of Scottish crime fiction which is hard to beat, never mind equal for longevity and popularity. Rebus is an Edinburgh cop with a past across the Firth of Forth – the body of water that separates the capital from the Kingdom of Fife. Fife boasts a heavy industrial past in coal mining. It does not breed people; it makes them out of the earth. As such, they have a hardiness that makes them difficult to ignore. Becoming a policeman in Edinburgh means that Rebus finds himself, aside from a soccer affiliation to Hibernian FC, a man of simple thoughts with complex problems to solve.

He is a man who attracts tragedy, like a bee hovers around flowers.

It was a 4 series and 14 episodes explosion on a Scottish television screen, starting with the man behind the whole idea, John Hannah, playing Rebus first. Hannah was a reluctant lead.

Desperate to bring the Rebus world to the small screen he was convinced, by others, that he needed to play the principal character. He was the wrong choice, even for himself. STV, part of the ITV network brought it to fruition with finance that demanded someone who would head the publicity and rather than getting the guy EVERYBODY on every forum at EVERY time they were asked, talked of as being the ideal candidate – Ken Stott – we got Hannah instead.

Having been behind the development of the series itself, Hannah can be credited with a first series that was different to the Stott three series which followed. The productions were a little darker, scripts a little edgier and whilst Hannah was as wrong for Rebus as Tom Cruise was for Jack Reacher, Hannah gave us innovation including voiceovers as narration to open up the inside working of the Rebus mind. Stott did not repeat the gesture in the subsequent episodes.

Running from the beginning of the new Millennium, 2000 until 2007, the Stott incarnation was and still is, a staple of viewing for STV – streaming can sometimes be a good thing…

So, the premise was easy to understand. Rebus was no genius but a dedicated hard working, hard drinking, anti-authority cop who policed the streets of Edinburgh. An Inspector, with a reputation he was ably assisted by Siobhan Clark played by Gayanne Potter in series 1 and Claire Price thereafter, and crossed swords often with DCI Gill Templer played by Sara Stewart in series 1 and then Jennifer Black.

There was nothing truly radical about any of the Rebus series and it was faithful enough to the trajectory of the books. The books sit on my shelves as they do in many Scottish homes as “the” principal example of Scottish crime fiction. Rankin may not have assumed the mantle of national treasure but Rebus, his creation has possibly become the first Scottish literary midge – a creature that you cannot get rid of because of its persistence and undying Scottishness. Rankin has attempted, a little like former Scottish crime fiction writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – to permanently retire Rebus, but to no avail. There has been no Reichenbach Falls moment for Rebus and permanent disgrace being a feature of his career throughout, it would possibly have taken a lot more than a nudge to see him fall beyond rescue. But he has endured, and Rankin is constantly reminded of him, and another novel is written, published and his audience buys in significant numbers. The quality of the source material for the television series is unquestioningly good.

Having managed to trip its way through the first series, the arrival of Stott was welcomed and eagerly awaited as series two launched and a kind of reboot. It followed challenge at the end of the first series as the final episode of the first series was delayed for four years due to the attacks on the World Trade Center: the finale had been due to air on the 11th of September – the attacks were truly global news.

Whilst the first series had taken on 4 Rankin books, the second series was only two crimes long. It meant that what we got was at the top of its tree – it was exactly what the novels deserved – real and true dedication matching the original ideas. Series three came close behind and again had the luxuries afforded a production which was the best example we had of crime drama.

But then series four arrived and it was in a truncated format which did not go down well-especially with Rankin himself. STV did in later years talk of a revival of Rebus for television, but Rankin had bought back the rights and been clear – want to hear and see Rebus, read the novels – for he ain’t coming back on screen.

For the author, there is no arrogance here or upset, just someone who has been dedicated to bringing a golden character to our screens saying that he has had enough of it being taken and abused for others to change and deny it, its best shop window fitting.

I agree with Rankin. The books are too good to just have a quick piece of exploitation for commercial TV. They deserve to be lauded and applauded with respect. Whilst sad the other novels are not going to be on our screens anytime soon, I still treasure all four series. And to be fair to John Hannah, though he got criticism, without him we would not have got the whole four series at all. His Rebus may not be the one we all wanted but it is an interpretation we can argue over… and what is not to be gained by arguing over television…

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 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…

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