Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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‘You’ve got to love the scabs’
Angus Reid speaks to IRVINE WELSH about the art and the politics behind his popular ITV series Crime
SERVANT OF THE STATE: (Left) Stephen Dougray Scott as DI Ray Lennox in Crime second series; (right) Irvine Welsh
[ITVX]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
AS he describes the unfolding narrative of his TV series Crime, two states of mind are going on in writer Irvine Welsh’s feel for it: both a serene strategy, and a wrecker’s glee. He has taken the most popular TV genre, the “pacey, entertaining cop drama” and turned it inside out.
“The biggest point for me” says Welsh, “is that Lennox (the hero) is NOT a cop. I’m not really interested in someone who is a servant of the state in that way.”
The plan has always been to use the crime genre as a “Trojan horse” to capture the audience, and then to turn it into something else: “an existential thriller,” the story of a man “trying to solve the mystery of himself.”
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