Thirteen dead, nothing said

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.  

#12 : Uprising

Following his Small Axe anthology series last year, Steve McQueen returned with a documentary that dug much deeper into a subject that underpinned many episodes. Uprising told the story of the 1981 New Cross fire, carefully setting it in political context, then unleashing the horror of a crime that took 13 Black lives, then refusing to back down from its consequences. Unbelievably powerful.

Steve McQueen making a documentary on black issues - I think we're probably in safe hands here and I can expect to be educated through some stark, horrific facts which very much reflect the time.  To my shame, I don't remember the fire but I suspect a lot of the imagery on display will be familiar (from the news, if not necessarily from my life experiences).

And we start with a brief statement of facts about the fire, before being introduced to a load of people who I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot more from over the course of the three episodes that make up this documentary.  Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of scene-setting in the first episode - all the stuff on the National Front still surprises me as to how prevalent and how open it was back then in some areas.  I was aware of it, but for the most part round our way they were generally viewed as unsavoury types - and historical evidence would seem to suggest we were pretty much on the right track.  And they were really tied in with the Met - good job the police have really sorted out they act since then, isn't it?  The rest of the episode goes through the events on the night of the first in great detail - a lot of time has been spent and it must have brought back extremely painful memories for a lot of the people involved, but they tell their stories well.

The second episode covers the immediate aftermath of the fire - again, it's very thorough and fair, but possibly unnecessarily so because it often goes over the same ground.  The main thrust of the program is the difference between the views of the black community and the local police as to whether it was a racist fire-bombing or not and it's fair to say that neither side has changed their stance over the years.  With an impartial eye, I'd have to say the community present their views much more coherently and dispassionately, both about the cause of the fire and the way in which it was reported - and they had (and still have) far more reason to be passionate (and yes, I'm very aware that it could well have been edited that way to make me think that).  The episode ends with a section on the Black People's Day Of Action which happened about six weeks later - which, if I knew about at all, I'd completely forgotten about and it was all very impressive.

The third episode takes a slight change of direction, concentrating first on Brixton and people growing up there at the time.  How long before the riots erupt?  Ah - we're going back in time to Bristol first to when they rioted for a bit, but it doesn't take us long to get back to Brixton.  The representation of both sides in this episode is interestingly presented quite differently because the police interviewed make no attempt to defend the general behaviour at the time (of course, they were never personally responsible!) and the community members involved make no apologies for their involvement in the riots and the excitement they felt at the time.  It does make an effort to tie the riots back to the fire, but it all feels a bit simplistic and rushed to me - my suspicion is that someone thought three episodes were required and the fire wasn't going to provide the material, but I feel the riots could easily have provided six episodes of material and still only scratched the surface.

Across all the episodes, the talking heads sections are well done and most people interviewed are surprisingly dispassionate about the events.  In particular, the thoughts of George Rhoden, a serving black police officer at the time, is fascinating across all the episodes and would benefit from much deeper investigation.  The archive footage is also well done and really took me back at times, but some of the other stuff that was shot to fill in the time was surprisingly clunky for someone of Mr McQueen's skill.  And he REALLY loves a close-up shot of people's eyes, which really don't add anything.  

Two minor, less serious thoughts - it's weird to see Peter Bleksley, who is the head of the tracking team on Channel 4's Hunted on the program but he was a copper in Peckham at the time.  And it's lovely to see Linton Kwezi Johnson as well - he's definitely a dignified elder statesman now but I remember him from his angry young man days!

All in all, it's an interesting story and an important education for me - but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it and I think the pacing was often off, so I'm not convinced it's "great" television.  But I do feel I'm a better person for watching it and partially hopeful - society has definitely moved on in some ways from those days. However, it was depressing that the one thing that it seemed everyone agreed on was that although the Scarman report into the causes of the riot was generally fair and balanced, there was never any inclination shown to implement its recommendations and the recent troubles of the Met Police would unfortunately seem to confirm this.

#11 - Unfortunately a bit of a let-down
#13 - Beautiful, but not for me