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British television screens could hardly be said to be crying out for a new
detective in 1993, when Cracker (ITV) first appeared. Fitz (Robbie Coltrane),
however, was cut from a different cloth. A psychologist by trade, Fitz applied
his fierce intelligence and acute understanding of the human mind to the cases
where his police employers' more traditional methods were found wanting. But
despite his brilliance, he had little of the refinement of his literary
forebears, the amateur sleuths of Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie.
Fitz took the archetype of the flawed hero to new extremes. Grossly
overweight, chainsmoker, heavy drinker, compulsive gambler, adulterer, arrogant
and domineering, he seemed to be working his way through each of the deadly
sins. For all that, the character - as embodied by the surprisingly cast
Coltrane, better known for comic roles - had an irresistible charm. Piercingly
cynical, with a keen, cruel wit, he flattered the intelligence of his audience,
while making his peers, particularly the police, look stupid.
Set in Manchester, a city with strong Celtic ties, stories carried strong
Catholic themes: a killer posing as a priest is unmasked because he breaks the
sacred bond of the confession to frame another for his crimes, victims' families
struggle with their faith, while Fitz, himself a (very) lapsed Catholic, offers
suspects absolution in return for confession.
Early stories impressed with the intelligence of writing and performances,
but it was the third, 'One Day a Lemming Will Fly', in which writer-creator
Jimmy McGovern's contained anger let rip. Beginning with the murder of a
sensitive schoolboy, the script furiously lashed out at the media-fuelled
hysteria and mob justice surrounding paedophilia, questioned its hero's own
judgement as he realises he has extracted a confession from an innocent man, and exposed the cynicism of a police force shamelessly pursuing 'results' rather
than justice. The follow-up, 'To Be a Somebody', continued the brilliance,
featuring an avenging killer (a pre-fame Robert Carlyle) seeking restorative
justice for the 1986 Hillsborough disaster (subject of McGovern's later
drama-documentary Hillsborough, ITV, tx. 5/12/1996) and climaxing with the memorable death of DI Billsborough (Christopher Eccleston).
If subsequent stories couldn't always match this power, they continued to
throw up novel subjects, notably a mixed-race rapist tortured by confusion over his ethnic identity and the disintegration of Detective Beck (Lorcan Cranitch)
following his boss's death, culminating in his rape of his colleague Penhaligon
(Geraldine Somerville).
Mark Duguid
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1. The great British public (2:18)
