When a bunch of kids assemble outside Jodie’s flat, they look like the young cast of a West End musical about to break into a dance routine. Some of the intimidating behaviour also looks a bit daft on screen. The colour palette is subdued, and lots of scenes take place in the dark. That takes away a degree of realism Jodie’s estate is weirdly deserted (as is the police station), her boyfriend’s house may as well be in Denmark, and shots are tightly framed to disguise where they’re being filmed. The director spends most of his time trying to cover up the fact that the show is pretending to be set in London but was actually filmed in Ireland. These are mainly to do with the budget, which looks lower than an episode of Cruising with Jane McDonald. In some respects, this Channel 5 drama is an inferior product. A blameless, ordinary person drawn into a nightmarish scenario is a theme shared by The Control Room on BBC One, which is also running on consecutive nights this week. Jodie – a single mother bringing up her son, Kyle – becomes a victim of witness intimidation and a very shifty PC (Sion Daniel Young) is assigned to look after her. It turns out to involve a gangland murder. But this chance sighting leads to terrible consequences. Jodie (Nina Toussaint-White) provides the police with descriptions of the pair, unaware of what crime has been committed. “Those appeals for information… most people keep their heads down,” she tells Jodie, a hair salon owner who was opening the shutters one morning when she happened to see two men walking by. Would you respond to a police witness appeal? According to the detective in Witness Number 3 (Channel 5), the majority don’t.
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