Marc

by Roy Williams

1/3 The Story of Marc. DS Max Mathews returns from bereavement leave to rejoin DC Sean Armitage doing what they do best. An ex-colleague, Marc, is suspected of domestic violence, but while Sean is maybe too close to the case, Max has an uncanny insight into the crime.

Music by David Pickvance
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole

This is another chance to hear the second series of Roy Williams' hard hitting dramas of modern crime. Critical acclaim for the first series included this, in the Spectator...

He writes about the stuff you'd rather not know, prefer not to think about, pretend to ignore. But it lives on with you in the mind. It won't let you go. By his words, the sharp, brittle, spot-on dialogue, he forces you to recognise the limitations of your experience, your understanding. It's not the story outline that matters, but the characterisation, the way the people speak, the language they use. Each of the characters is so clearly differentiated you know exactly what they look like without a detail being given to us. Through the conversation, the interaction, we gather in the back story, we get the gist. There are no easy answers. It's life, messy life, the life we'd rather not think about as we listen to the radio, doing the ironing, making marmalade, cocooned mostly from the nasty, brutish world dealt with by others on our behalf.

Kate Chisholm.