Banished

Of course, insofar as you might have given it any thought, you will have considered this a dead cert for me to watch. I thought so myself, very briefly. After all, it's set in Australia, the place that makes my soul sing. It stars two of my favourite actors in David Wenham and Julian Rhind Tutt. Got to be date TV, right?

 

Only it's not. I watched Episode 1, started with high hopes, and felt them drain away, minute by excruciating minute. Of course given that the series was by Jimmy McGovern there were bound to be some JM dramatic clichés. Working class characters, almost all good, worthy, misunderstood grafters, despite being convicts who have been banished to the far side of he world. Soldiers, also mostly working class but obviously bad guys because they have taken the Empire shilling without shame and in putting on their uniforms have become thieves, bullies and rapists. Officers, obviously bad guys from the get go, because that's how McGovern sees the world. And the one 'good - ish' example of the upper or officer class, the Governor, is weak and powerless to change the overall hard brutish tenor of the new colony.

 

This might have been just about palatable, had the plot and conversation not been likewise full of the improbable, the inexplicable and the unsayable. At one point in Episode 1 the Governor gave permission to two convicts to marry, even though both were already married and had spouses back in Blighty. The Governor's totally specious reasoning was that, given they had been transported, their respective husband and wife back in Britain were unlikely ever to see them again, which left them free to marry one another. This then saved the female convict, played by the wooden faced Myanna Buring, from the prospect of being raped by any of the passing soldiery. Now the Minister of  the new colony, rather took exception to this view of the matter and refused to 'marry' the couple. He continued to refuse, even though he was therefore going to be forced to personally hang the male convict concerned and he was about ready to do this, with some reluctance, when his bonkers wife screamed out 'This is a crucifixion' and he found himself a) unable to do the hanging and b) able to solemnise 'the marriage'

 

There was also a sub-plot in which Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane from Game of Thrones was stealing the meagre rations from the werewolf in Being Human, and being allowed to get away with it on the grounds that he was the colony's only blacksmith (really?). Not being enamoured of Russell Tovey (it may be the ears, which I personally don't find all that endearing) I would be quite happy for him to starve to death but as he is emblazoned over all the publicity for the series I suspect he will still be standing at the end of Series 1. And let's all hope that Series 2 never gets made, because not only is this hokum, it is tedious, mind-numbingly, sentimental hokum and a waste of a good drama slot.

 

I suspect Julian Rhind Tutt does every job he's offered, which is the only way to account for his current ubiquity, and his presence here. David Wenham has shown a distressing lack of discrimination in his choice of roles over the past couple of years ( Top of the Lake, anyone?). I don't know how the actor who turned in such a moving subtle and credible  performance in Oranges and Sunshine ended up in this tosh, unless perhaps he had an unexpected tax bill. He really is much much better than this.