bionic820-1 Very well done. Don't compare to everything else you have seen out there. More to come...

fiona_r_lamb I so wanted to like this. And I am so disappointed that I did not.And I didn't like the way the film was edited at all. For me it was too choppy, and lacked cohesion. The characters were all very unlikeable. Just did not work for me. It had promise, a good idea but it just was not fleshed out properly.Shirley Henderson used to be a good actress - what happened? The scene where she enters what she thinks is a brothel was just AWFUL.But most of all it just wasn't believable. For example - and MAJOR spoiler alert - the two men who assaulted Stephen, the gunman, and who provoked him into killing got away with it. The story should have revolved around their guilt and shame and even though the show touched upon it with the younger man trying to kill himself a year later, it was not nearly enough.The only good thing is it's 4 x 45 minutes long so not too drawn out.

paul2001sw-1 Sometimes, stuff just happens, and it's not always pretty. 'Southcliffe' fictionalises rare but real stories when a loner has flipped and gone out and shot up his not so loving local community; and as such, it's quite realistic. The problem is, there isn't any real narrative here (at least, nothing sufficiently meaty to justify the happenings); and although in part this is the entire point of the series, it's also a slightly self-defeating point to make in a drama. It's hard to feel too involved when there's no underlying cause to events: the story of a journalist caught up in events has a similar, believable but essentially arbitrary feel. I often like series that give us no easy answers; but in the absence even of any real questions, this one didn't do it for me.

Tweekums This bleak drama opens with a woman being shot as she tends her garden; we then go back to see what led ex-squaddie Stephan Morton to go on a killing spree. He learn how nobody took him seriously and mocked his claims to have served in the SAS; this escalates and he is brutally attacked by a serving soldier and a former member of the regiment. The next day he shoots the mother he has been caring for before setting off and shooting at anybody he can get in his sights. Later episodes show us the impact of what he did on the bereaved, on the community as a whole and on a journalist who has returned to Southcliffe to report on the events but is still haunted by his miserably childhood there.If you like your drama bleak then this is for you; everything about the location from the foggy marshes to the plaintive calls of the marsh birds serves to keep things suitably downbeat. Sean Harris, who seems the go-to guy if you want a psychopath, goes a fine job as Morton and the excellent Shirley Henderson is great as bereaved mother Claire. Things start well but unfortunately turn overly melodramatic when TV reporter David Whitehead has a meltdown on air then goes to the pub and tells the locals they had it coming! There is also no explanation of how Morton is in possession of an AK-47 as such weapons were banned after the frequently referenced Hungerford shootings in the '80s. Despite these flaws it is still worth watching if you like emotional dramas; and at only four episodes you won't waste too much to if you don't like it.