TV Review: The Sweeney

The Sweeney: The Placer

‘Haskins is doing for The Sweeney what the Boston Strangler did for door-to-door salesmen.’ This only half sums up the put-upon, pressured Chief Inspector Haskins, so wonderfully played in The Sweeney by the late Garfield Morgan. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/garfield-morgan-actor-best-known-for-playing-jack-regans-boss-in-the-sweeney-1852849.html This episode, the sixth of the opening series, sees him at his best, beginning frustrated with Jack Regan’s methods, eventually joining in – his delivery of a line as he finally decides to deliberately miss a meeting to give Regan more time is perfectly timed for comic effect. Soon after this he is found playing golf, stalking the main villain of the piece around the course, again to much amusement. A great example of a great actor.

The story itself sees Regan (John Thaw) posing undercover as a truck driver, attempting to uncover a series of raids on the vehicles and their cargo. Sporting a rugged moustache, Thaw is tremendous as a double agent, switching effortlessly from undercover to cop when in the presence of George Carter (Dennis Waterman). As often in The Sweeney, this episode concludes when you feel there could be more story to tell but the end is perfect; Jack, surveying the fallen bodies of his targets, sighs ‘Jack Regan – this is your life.’ And it is a life where the target often ends up dead instead of captured. An ultimately frustrating existence.

As usual, the incidental music underscores the story perfectly, and the direction by Ted Childs is high class – using camera moves rather than cuts to add to the pace. The Sweeney’s three-act structure, necessitated by being produced by ITV, helps where often it hinders, with two crescendos after 17 and 34 minutes keeping the viewer interested, while the ending, as here, is often relatively downbeat after all the action and comedy – for there is a lot of humour in The Sweeney – of the preceeding 50 minutes. As TV drama goes, it doesn’t get much better than this.