On the whole I watch TV as anti-stimulation – same reason as I DON’T listen to music (music generates way too much whirly stuff in my head, so unless I’m actually writing about it or researching something I avoid it). Anyway, I don’t expect or particularly want to get worked up by television, and generally it respects my requirements hurrah! Anyway anyway, I’m even not sure how GOOD it was, but Wall of Silence got me as seethed and jittery as anything I’ve watched for years: a kid is killed by a mob of yoof on a S.London estate, and when his dad and the police try to find witnesses, fear and/or solidarity means no one will say anything. It wasn’t just that it brilliantly effectively jabbed at my anger nodes – I’ve watched god-knows-how-many courtroom TV dramas, but this was the first sneering-and-hectoring defence lawyer I ever wanted so much to punch I had to go and drink a glass of water! I guess that’s what I call top acting! – but also, to my considerable upset, my fear nodes. I was staying at my sister’s, and by chance afterwards in the street, two likely lads were sat on a car right below the bedroom window, talking (not at all loudly) about who knows what (they could have been planning a killing spree, they could have been praising Freaky Trigger) (hi guys!) but in my panicky/paranoid state I was sleeplessly imagining the worst. JUST LIKE MY GRAN AFTER CRIMEWATCH oh no! OH NO!!
Anyway I moved back into mine yesterday – ie 25 yards from a street that the national press has called “murder mile” for more than a decade – and regained perspective somewhat.
ps I think I watched, despite being really REALLY tired, because I love Phil Davies in anything, not least bcz I often see him from the bus to work as he slips across Essex Road.