so_cold Based on Jake Arnott's book of the same name. The TV series of the long firm is an asset to any DVD collection. It follows the story of Harry Starks, the temperamental club owner trying to make it big in the sixties, but he's well ahead of his time. His up's and downs are shown through his friends and acquaintances. Teddy, who Harry helps out of a Jam but he wants something in return, Ruby, who's husband goes to prison, but finds solace with Harry's down-trodden, confused boyfriend Tommy. There's also Jimmy's story ,a dealer who can't get over his wife's death and helps Harry solve a mystery, and Lenny, who finds himself teaching Harry all he knows, and ends up with nothing as a result.All the cast are terrific in their roles, especially Mark Strong as Harry starks. He can be friendly yet menacing, manipulative but careless, destructive but fragile all at the same time. There's also a scene with Harry and his father that's complete scene stealer. Each episode is unmissable.

Theo Robertson The BBC rest on their past reputation . There's little good I can say about the BBC in the 21st century as they force feed us TV dinners of quiz shows , hidden camera shows and DIY shows , recipes that leave TV critics like myself under nourished . But my compliments to whatever TV chef cooked up THE LONG FORM for our televisual delight Mark Strong plays Harry Starks a homosexual gangster in 1960s London .Episode 1 ) Harry and his new boyfriend travel to Nigeria to pull off a scamEpisode 2 ) Harry tries to set up a club while his new boyfriend Tommy has a sexual relationship with starlet Ruby Ryder Episode 3 ) A rent boy is found murdered and mutilated so Harry tries to track down his killers Episode 4 ) Newly released from prison Harry tries to start a new life in Spain with a limp wristed criminologistThat's the premise of each episode but it's impossible to describe how well they play out on screen . For much of the episode Harry is off centre and it's the supporting characters that carry the audience through the story . It also has a wonderful sense of dark humour like the bit where an obviously stoned Judy Garland tries to sing only to have the club goers pelt and boo her , or the scene where Harry is described as a deviant by a criminologist : " Deviant ? Deviant ! - Calling me a f***in' nonce ! "This show has you laughing out loud one minute and curling your toes the next with some graphic violence because there's nothing Harry enjoys more than tying someone up in a chair and inflicting violence on them usually with a white hot objectThere's little negative I can say about THE LONG FIRM . I could be pedantic and point out small errors like the episode set in 1967 has a clip from a DOCTOR WHO story from 1968 but that would be cruel . The ending is slightly disappointing but nothing is perfect and expect this show to pick up a major amount of awards at next years BAFTA's And if the BBC can produce drama of this quality then why do we have to put up with a unfufilling TV diet of garbage ? The BBC can still make classic drama when it wants to . I guess they just don't want to

gray4 A fascinating four-parter, centred on London gangland boss Harry Starks, and starting in the 1960s. The episodes are uneven, and occasionally implausible, but the series is made unmissable by the looming presence of Mark Strong. He is more than a scary thug, though he is terrifying in that role. At times he is stoical, and even tender, so that you can even feel sorry for him. He is countered by Derek Jacobi as a corrupt peer, drawn into Harry's half-baked schemes, with a splendid cameo by Phil Daniels as pathetic drug-dealer.The London and Essex settings are excellent, capturing perfectly the glamour and seediness of '60s clubland. When Harry goes further afield, to Nigeria and then Spain, it is a lot less convincing. But overall a great series, well worth looking out for.

LewisJForce I tuned in to 'The Long Firm'" with high hopes. A modern historical drama starring the excellent Mark Strong looked promising, bringing to mind memories of 'Our friends in the north' - one of the best TV dramas of the past 20 years. Having now seen the fourth and final episode, I have to say that, although it was entertaining and extremely well-made, I was more than a little disappointed.I am loathe to criticise ambitious drama like this in the light of the soapy dreck that constitutes the vast majority of British televisual output. However, 'The Long Firm' promised more than it delivered. And its faults lay firmly with the writing.Each episode used a different narrator to relay details of their associations with the main character, London gangster Harry Starks. The technique proved clumsy, with the voice-overs unsubtle and unenlightening. Why employ such a method if ultimately the insights are all the same? More friction needed to exist between what we saw and what we heard for it to work. Like too much modern drama, the approach didn't transcend its stylistic facility.In the same vein, character development and the attendant psychological underpinnings (e.g. gangster as thwarted celebrity/entertainer) were clichéd and overly familiar. The final episode, in particular, was embarrassingly heavy-handed in its satire of the counter-culture and academia. In general there was too much pastiche and caricature to allow real interest. Any emotional impact generated by these people was purely down to the skill of the actors and the director. Also, I haven't read the source novel by Jake Arnott, but I am presuming that it made a more profitable and resonant use of the metaphorical title. Here, it was explained briefly in episode one and then thrown away.Ultimately, each episode proved highly watchable but somehow unsatisfying, leaving this viewer to assume that we were building to some revelation/twist/new insight that never came, the screenwriter happy to fashion the piece into little more than a summation of period iconography/psychology.There was much to enjoy, though. The piece was extremely well-cast, mixing a few expected-but-impressive veterans with a lot of talented but lesser-known faces. Mark Strong proved to be a commanding linchpin as Starks, bringing charisma and nuance to the role. Also notable were Lena Headey's Ruby Ryder, the excellent George Costigan, and Shaun Dingwall as Harry's biographer. The period detail and mise en scene were nicely understated and entirely convincing, and there were nice, ballsy touches like the interpolation of footage from the 'Parkinson' show. Additionally there were a few welcome surprises on the contemporaneous soundtrack, such as Janice Nicholls' novelty hit 'I'll give it five'. Or 'Oi'll give eet foive!'.Perhaps I expected a little too much from this piece. I walked away reasonably entertained but with an air of opportunities unfulfilled.