This is what killed you. No, it's what kept me going.

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2022.  

#30 : Anne

At the start of this harrowing but rallying four-parter, Anne Williams (Maxine Peake) waves off her teenage son and his friend to go and watch Liverpool play at Hillsborough. The year is 1989, and we know how the day ends. Peake offers up a quivering performance as a grieving mother who spends 23 years campaigning for the truth to be acknowledged about the death of her son and the other 96 victims of the disaster. TV has surely never made a better case that you should not back down in the fight for justice.

This isn't something I would have chosen to watch but, like Sarah Lancashire, Maxine Peake is an indicator of quality - although she does tend to be more of an indicator of both grimness and quality.  If she's in it, then it's probably not going to be a barrel of laughs - and, given the subject matter, it seems particularly unlikely in this case.

It starts off with a lovely retro vibe - it's hard to believe Hillsborough was quite so long ago now.  The initial scenes where Kevin is missing and Anne and Steve (Stephen Walters) are trying to find out what's happened to him are, unsurprisingly, very harrowing - the short scene outside Hillsborough is very eerie.  You obviously know things aren't going to end well and you suspect they also know, but they don't want to believe it - and at every stage they're assailed by grieving relatives.  And then when they find out, it's almost unwatchable (I had to take a bit of a break) - a lot of that first episode must have been very difficult to film.  There's also an impressive scene with Kevin's mate, Andy (Matthew Roberts) explaining what it was like in the crowd.

After the first episode, timescales start to stretch out (because they have to) and we're shown key events from a twenty five-ish year timeline - I found it quite hard to tell exactly where we were at times, but it's always possible that's my fault rather than theirs.  It tells the story effectively, but, despite some fine scenes, it lacked the punch that the first episode gave me.  Until you get to the meeting detailing the results of the independent commission, which is a very powerful scene - particularly given it's basically one guy reading a report!  And after that we're in to the scenes leading up to Anne's death (spoiler alert!) which are also, unsurprisingly, pretty punchy.

You're left with no doubt that Anne was an extremely determined woman - she's not portrayed as a saint, but who can honestly say what they'd be like if they went through what she did?  Maxine's portrayal felt very unshowy - she doesn't turn the drama taps fully on except when she needs to (and she also has a very underplayed Scouse accent, which is very much to her credit - to my uncultured ears anyway).  It's such a strong central performance that others do somewhat struggle to get a look in - Stephen Walters does a good job as her husband, but he pretty much disappears after they get divorced and I'd also call out Ellie May Davies as her daughter - she only appears in the second half but she works really well with Maxine.  Matthew McNulty also does a good job as Andy Burnham - it doesn't hurt that he looks a bit like him (unlike the guy they picked to play Jack Straw).

The series does do a good job in following the timeline stylistically and they must have put so much work into set design - none of which gets noticed, let alone appreciated by 99.9% of the audience.  The camerawork is steadfastly unflashy - there's a few drone shots of the city, but nothing more than that really, but it doesn't call for it.

I have one (very minor) quibble - I don't understand why they only introduced Anne's brother in the final episode.  Surely they could have written some minor scenes to acknowledge he existed at some point in the first fifty years of her life?

All in all, I enjoyed rather than loved this - I was aware of Anne, but didn't know her story in any detail and I feel a better person for knowing it (and it presented a different angle on the fight for Justice For Hillsborough, which was a story I was pretty much familiar with).  But the story, despite obviously being a massive one, was a bit slight for four episodes in the way it was presented and the tone was somewhat uneven for me - however, the first episode and the second half of the last episode were very fine indeed.  At the time of writing, it's available to watch on ITV+ (which is SO much better than ITV Hub).

And always remember - "Don't buy The Sun"

#29 - No, wait - it's good!
#31 - Enjoyably bonkers