Cracker (UK TV series)

Cracker
Created by Jimmy McGovern
Starring Robbie Coltrane
Geraldine Somerville
Christopher Eccleston
Ricky Tomlinson
Lorcan Cranitch
Barbara Flynn
Kieran O'Brien
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of series 5
No. of episodes 25 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Sally Head
Producer(s) Gub Neal
Paul Abbott
Hilary Bevan Jones
John Chapman
Location(s) Manchester
Running time 50 mins. (Series 1-3)
120 mins. (Series 4-5)
Release
Original network ITV
Original release 27 September 1993 – 1 October 2006

Cracker is a British crime drama series produced by Granada Television for ITV and created and principally written by Jimmy McGovern. Set in Manchester, the series is centered on a criminal psychologist (or "cracker"), Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, played by Robbie Coltrane, who works with the Greater Manchester Police to help them solve crimes. The show consists of three series which were originally aired from 1993 to 1995. A 100-minute special set in Hong Kong followed in 1996, and another two-hour story in 2006.

Overview

Fitz is a classic antihero, alcoholic, a chain smoker, obese, sedentary, addicted to gambling, manic, foul-mouthed and sarcastic, and yet cerebral and brilliant. He is a genius in his speciality: criminal psychology. As Fitz confesses in "Brotherly Love": "I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much."

Each case spanned several episodes and cliffhangers were quite often used, but it was not until the end of the second series that a cliffhanger was employed to tie off the series. Some of the plotlines in the cases took as their starting point real events such as the Hillsborough disaster, while others were purely fictional with only tangential ties to actual events.

Several different psychotic types were explored during the run of the show with increasingly complex psychological motivations that, as the series entered the middle of the second series, began to expand beyond the criminals being investigated to the regular cast members. As the series moved forward the storylines became as much about the interactions of the regulars as it was about the crimes. In many later episodes, in fact, the crimes often became background to intense, provocative explorations of the police officers' reactions to the crimes they investigated.

To emphasise how fine a line the police (and Fitz) walk in their close association with criminals, all three series featured several stories in which the police themselves commit criminal acts or become victims of crime.

Characters

Main cast

Fitz subduing a suspect in "The Mad Woman in the Attic".
Bilborough, after being stabbed and left for dead in "To Be a Somebody".
DS Jimmy Beck and DS Jane Penhaligon in "To Say I Love You".
Fitz interrogating a suspect in "To Be a Somebody".
Thomas Francis Kelly (Adrian Dunbar) in "The Mad Woman in the Attic".
Sean Kerrigan (Andrew Tiernan) and Tina Brien (Susan Lynch) in "To Say I Love You".
Sean Kerrigan contemplates his future in "To Say I Love You".

Guest stars

Nigel Cassidy (Christopher Fulford) in "One Day a Lemming Will Fly".
Nigel Cassidy threatens to throw himself from a rooftop in "One Day a Lemming Will Fly".
Albie Kinsella (Robert Carlyle) in "To Be a Somebody".
Albie Kinsella confronts Shahid Ali in "To Be a Somebody".

Crew

The first two series were written by Jimmy McGovern, excepting the fifth serial "The Big Crunch," which was contributed by Ted Whitehead. Claiming that he had "nothing more to write about,"[1] McGovern originally planned to leave after the second series, but was allowed to write the controversial rape storyline, "Men Should Weep", when he agreed to contribute a three-part story to the third series. Two of McGovern's stories, "To Say I Love You" and "Brotherly Love" (from the first and third series respectively), received Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. Each serial had a different director, with the exceptions of "To Be a Somebody" and "True Romance", both directed by Tim Fywell.

Paul Abbott, who had produced the second series, wrote the remainder of the episodes (including the feature-length special "White Ghost"). Abbott later went on to create several high-profile dramas, including Touching Evil (1997), State of Play (2003) and Shameless (2004). Another crew member, Nicola Shindler, who worked as script editor on the programme, later went on to found the highly successful Red Production Company.

Of the regular cast, only Coltrane and Tomlinson featured in "White Ghost" (retitled "Lucky White Ghost" for some overseas markets), which was set in Hong Kong. Although the series was still drawing large audiences, after "White Ghost" Coltrane declined to return as Fitz unless McGovern returned to write the series.

Cracker returned to television screens a decade after "White Ghost" in the 2006 special episode, "Nine Eleven", written by McGovern and directed by Antonia Bird. Coltrane, Flynn and O'Brien were the only actors to return in their previous roles. The new roles of DCI Walters, DS Saleh and DS McAllister were played by Richard Coyle, Nisha Nayar and Rafe Spall respectively. The story involved Fitz returning to Manchester after several years of living in Australia with Judith and his son James (who had been born during the third series) to attend his daughter Katy's wedding. The murder of an American nightclub comedian sends the police to ask Fitz for his help.

Locations

The series was principally filmed in South Manchester, at locations including Didsbury (where Fitz lived at the fictitious address of "15 Charlotte Road"[2]) and the police station at Longsight. The internals for the police station were filmed in the old Daily Mirror offices in central Manchester, now The Printworks retail complex. Other Manchester locations included Victoria Railway Station, St Peter's Square, Old Trafford, the Arndale Centre, UMIST, University of Salford, the Ramada Hotel, the Star & Garter pub, Fairfield Street (opposite Piccadilly Station) and the Safeway supermarket (now Morrisons) in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. The Hulme Crescents were also used for filming in the first two episodes of series one and the first episode of series two; during which time they were being demolished.

Influences

In some respects, Cracker stories are structured like episodes of Columbo. They often begin by showing the criminal committing the crime, and so sidestep the whodunnit format which is the central attraction of many television crime dramas. Both series feature a lead character who solves crimes while masking an intelligent, perceptive nature behind a slobbish exterior; Fitz delivers his summing-up in "To Say I Love You" while doing a Peter Falk impression. However, while Lieutenant Columbo invariably solves each case to perfection, Fitz's involvement often only exacerbates the situation, for example leading police to arrest the wrong man ("One Day a Lemming Will Fly"), or unwittingly causing a serial rapist to murder his victim ("Men Should Weep").

Cracker's conception was also in some ways a reaction against the police procedural approach of fellow Granada crime serial Prime Suspect, placing more emphasis on emotional and psychological truth than on correct police procedure. In an interview with the NME, McGovern dismissed Prime Suspect, noting that "Good TV writing has narrative simplicity and emotional complexity," and characterising the series as "A narratively complex story going up its own arse." Gub Neal, who produced the first series of Cracker, is quoted as saying, "That we had adopted the right approach was confirmed for me when Jacky Malton, the senior woman police officer who advised on Prime Suspect, said that although the way things happened in Cracker was sometimes highly improbable, the relationships between the police were in many ways much more credible than they had been in Prime Suspect."

The "Men Should Weep" storyline was originally conceived as a plot for Prime Suspect, in which the series' protagonist, Jane Tennison, was raped.

Other versions

In 1997 a short spoof episode, Prime Cracker, was produced for the BBC's biennial Red Nose Day charity telethon in aid of Comic Relief. A crossover with ITV stablemate crime drama Prime Suspect, the spoof starred Coltrane and Prime Suspect lead Helen Mirren as their characters from the respective series, sending up both shows.

In 1997 a 16-part US version of Cracker — directed by Stephen Cragg and Michael Fields — was made, starring Robert Pastorelli in Coltrane's role. The original UK story lines were transferred to Los Angeles. The series finished after the first season. It was broadcast in the UK, retitled Fitz.

References and notes

  1. 'Head case' SMH.com.au; 30 September 2004
  2. From the business card that Fitz presents to his stalker in the episode "True Romance".

External links

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