There are certain fields in which the UK remains a world leader, and among them is public service drama. That is, scripted television that aspires to something beyond mere entertainment and which, when done properly, turns television into a singular instrument for social commentary.
That point was proved with Mr Bates vs the Post Office, about the scandalous treatment of sub-postmasters in the UK and, all over again, with Adolescence on Netflix. Adolescence was far from perfect – its portrayal of the average 13-year-old boy so wide of the mark you had to wonder if anyone involved had ever met an actual teenager. Still, it was insightful about the damage done to young men by toxic manosphere influencers and started a conversation about the dangerous garbage to which children are too often given access.
Now, Adolescence co-writer Jack Thorne has turned his attention to the cesspit that was the British tabloid industry by retelling the News of the World (NoW) phone-hacking scandal with The Hack (UTV, Wednesday). It stars David Tennant, who plays world-weary Guardian investigative journalist Nick Davies, the reporter who put together the story of the NoW hacking scandal over many painstaking years.
Tennant was among the dozens of celebrities and ordinary members of the public whose phone messages were illegally accessed by unscrupulous hackers, which perhaps explains the fervour he brings to the performance.
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Journalists can be counted on to swoon over a TV series that paints their profession in even a vaguely positive light, and Davies is undoubtedly the hero of the piece. He has the ideal foil in Toby Jones as Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, while Robert Carlyle pops up in part two as a constable investigating the disappearance of a private detective – a thread that eventually dovetails with Davies’s investigations.
It’s a great story, but, like Adolescence, The Hack has an unhelpful fixation on novelty. In the Netflix show, the decision to film each episode in a single take was show-off-y and distracting. The same can be said of the streak of surrealism that runs through The Hack, which features animated backgrounds, such as a Tube ad that comes to life, and moving posters (including one that assumes the likeness of NoW proprietor Rupert Murdoch). You can see the ambition – to capture Davies’ paranoia and frustration. But it brings an edge of wackiness to a tale more than capable of standing on its own feet.
