Cracker (UK TV series)

Last updated

Cracker
Robcolcractit.png
Created by Jimmy McGovern
Starring Robbie Coltrane
Geraldine Somerville
Christopher Eccleston
Ricky Tomlinson
Lorcan Cranitch
Barbara Flynn
Kieran O'Brien
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original language(s)English
No. of series5
No. of episodes25 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Sally Head
Producer(s)Gub Neal
Paul Abbott
Hilary Bevan Jones
John Chapman
Production location(s) Manchester, England, UK
Running time50 mins. (Series 1–3)
120 mins. (Series 4-5)
Release
Original network Granada Television for ITV
Original release27 September 1993 – 1 October 2006

Cracker is a British crime drama series produced by Granada Television for ITV, created and principally written by Jimmy McGovern. Set in Manchester, the series follows a criminal psychologist (or "cracker"), Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, played by Robbie Coltrane, who works with the Greater Manchester Police to help them solve crimes. The show consists of three series which were originally aired from 1993 to 1995. A 100-minute special set in Hong Kong followed in 1996 and another two-hour story in 2006. In 2000, the series was ranked 39 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute.

ITV Granada Channel 3 regional service for North West England

ITV Granada is a regional television company in North West England. It is the largest independent television-franchise producing company in the UK, accounting for 25% of the total broadcasting output of the ITV network.

ITV (TV network) TV network in the United Kingdom

ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, that was established in 1932. ITV is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.

James Stanley McGovern is an English screenwriter and producer. He created the television series Cracker (1993–1995), a popular and critical success in the UK, for which he received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. He has also received recognition for The Lakes,The Street and Accused, among others.

Contents

Overview

Fitz is a classic antihero: alcoholic, a chain smoker, obese, sedentary, addicted to gambling, manic, foul-mouthed and sarcastic, and yet cerebral and brilliant. He is a genius in his speciality: criminal psychology. As Fitz confesses in "Brotherly Love": "I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much."

Antihero leading character in a film, book or play, which is devoid of heroic qualities

An antihero or antiheroine is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that are morally correct, it is not always for the right reasons, often acting primarily out of self-interest or in ways that defy conventional ethical codes.

Sedentary lifestyle

A sedentary lifestyle is a type of lifestyle involving little or no physical activity. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like reading, socializing, watching television, playing video games, or using a mobile phone/computer for much of the day. A sedentary lifestyle can potentially contribute to ill health and many preventable causes of death.

Problem gambling urge to continuously gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop

Problem gambling is an urge to gamble continuously despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. Problem gambling is often defined by whether harm is experienced by the gambler or others, rather than by the gambler's behaviour. Severe problem gambling may be diagnosed as clinical pathological gambling if the gambler meets certain criteria. Pathological gambling is a common disorder that is associated with both social and family costs.

Each case spanned several episodes and cliffhangers were quite often used, but it was not until the end of the second series that a cliffhanger was employed to tie off the series. Some of the plotlines in the cases took as their starting point real events such as the Hillsborough disaster, while others were purely fictional with only tangential ties to actual events.

Cliffhanger narratological device

A cliffhanger, or cliffhanger ending, is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.

Hillsborough disaster incident which occurred during the FA Cup semi-final match in 1989

The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during an FA Cup semi-final football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, on 15 April 1989. With 96 fatalities and 766 injuries, it remains the worst disaster in British sporting history. The crush occurred in the two standing-only central pens in the Leppings Lane stand, allocated to Liverpool supporters. Shortly before kick-off, in an attempt to ease overcrowding outside the entrance turnstiles, the police match commander, chief superintendent David Duckenfield, ordered exit gate C to be opened, leading to an influx of even more supporters to the already overcrowded central pens.

Several different psychotic types were explored during the run of the show with increasingly complex psychological motivations that, as the series entered the middle of the second series, began to expand beyond the criminals being investigated to the regular cast members. As the series moved forward the storylines became as much about the interactions of the regulars as it was about the crimes. In many later episodes, in fact, the crimes often became background to intense, provocative explorations of the police officers' reactions to the crimes they investigated.

To emphasise how fine a line the police (and Fitz) walk in their close association with criminals, all three series featured several stories in which the police become victims of crime or themselves commit criminal acts like rape, obstruction of justice and assault and battery.

Characters

Main cast

Robbie Coltrane Scottish actor

Robbie Coltrane is a Scottish actor and author. He is known for his roles as Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, as Valentin Dmitrovich Zhukovsky in the James Bond films GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough, and as Dr. Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the British TV series Cracker during the 1990s.

Edward FitzGerald (poet) Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883), poet and translator

Edward FitzGerald was an English poet and writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The writing of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen. The use here of FitzGerald conforms to that of his own publications, anthologies such as Quiller-Couch's Oxford Book of English Verse, and most reference books up until about the 1960s.

Michael Gambon Irish born British actor

Sir Michael John Gambon is an Irish-born British actor who has worked in theatre, television, and film. Gambon has played the eponymous mystery writer protagonist in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and Professor Albus Dumbledore in the final six Harry Potter films after the death of Richard Harris who had previously played the role. He has won four BAFTA TV Awards and three Olivier Awards. He was knighted in 1998 for services to drama, and he was awarded the Irish Film & Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 for his contribution to Irish film.

Notable guest stars

Adrian Dunbar Northern Irish actor

Adrian Dunbar is an actor and director from Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, best known for his television and theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film, Hear My Song, nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA awards.

Nicholas Woodeson is an English film, television and theatre actor, and Drama Desk and Olivier award nominee.

Andrew James Tiernan is a British actor & director.

Episodes

Production

The first two series were written by Jimmy McGovern, excepting the fifth serial "The Big Crunch," which was contributed by Ted Whitehead. Claiming that he had "nothing more to write about," [1] McGovern originally planned to leave after the second series, but was allowed to write the controversial rape storyline, "Men Should Weep", when he agreed to contribute a three-part story to the third series. Two of McGovern's stories, "To Say I Love You" and "Brotherly Love" (from the first and third series respectively), received Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. Each serial had a different director, with the exceptions of "To Be a Somebody" and "True Romance", both directed by Tim Fywell.

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year.

Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City.

Tim Fywell is an English television and film director. In 2003 he made his first feature debut with I Capture the Castle, an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Dodie Smith. Fywell directed his first Hollywood feature, Ice Princess starring Michelle Trachtenberg, in 2005. Fywell started his career in British television, directing episodes of Brookside. Fywell recently directed the award winning Happy Valley 2 episodes (2014).

Paul Abbott, who had produced the second series, wrote the remainder of the episodes (including the feature-length special "White Ghost"). Abbott later went on to create several high-profile dramas, including Touching Evil (1997), State of Play (2003) and Shameless (2004). Another crew member, Nicola Shindler, who worked as script editor on the programme, later went on to found Red Production Company.

Of the regular cast, only Coltrane and Tomlinson featured in "White Ghost" (retitled "Lucky White Ghost" for some overseas markets), which was set in Hong Kong. Although the series was still drawing large audiences, after "White Ghost" Coltrane declined to return as Fitz unless McGovern returned to write the series.

Cracker returned a decade after "White Ghost" in the 2006 special episode, "Nine Eleven", written by McGovern and directed by Antonia Bird. Coltrane, Flynn and O'Brien were the only actors to return in their previous roles. The new roles of DCI Walters, DS Saleh and DS McAllister were played by Richard Coyle, Nisha Nayar and Rafe Spall respectively. The story involved Fitz returning to Manchester after several years of living in Australia with Judith and his son James (who had been born during the third series) to attend his daughter Katy's wedding. The murder of an American nightclub comedian sends the police to ask Fitz for his help.

Locations

The series was principally filmed in South Manchester, at locations including Didsbury (where Fitz lived at the fictitious address of "15 Charlotte Road" [2] ) and the police station at Longsight. The internals for the police station were filmed in the old Daily Mirror offices in central Manchester, now The Printworks retail complex. Other Manchester locations included Victoria Railway Station, St Peter's Square, Old Trafford, the Arndale Centre, UMIST, University of Salford, the Ramada Hotel, the Star & Garter pub, Fairfield Street (opposite Piccadilly Station) and the Safeway supermarket (now Morrisons) in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. The Hulme Crescents were also used for filming in the first two episodes of series one and the first episode of series two; during which time they were being demolished. The first episode involved several railway scenes which were filmed on the East Lancashire Railway in Bury (North Manchester) both on the trackside and inside the Carriage & Wagon Works, where working volunteers from the railway used crowbars to push the carriage springs up and down to suggest a moving train, while water was poured on the windows to suggest rain between a black polythene sheets and the window to indicate darkness.

Other versions

In 1997 a short spoof episode, Prime Cracker, was produced for the BBC's biennial Red Nose Day charity telethon in aid of Comic Relief. A crossover with ITV stablemate crime drama Prime Suspect , the spoof starred Coltrane and Prime Suspect lead Helen Mirren as their characters from the respective series, sending up both shows.

In 1997 a 16-part US version of Cracker — directed by Stephen Cragg and Michael Fields — was made, starring Robert Pastorelli in Coltrane's role. The original UK story lines were transferred to Los Angeles. The series finished after the first season. It was broadcast in the UK, retitled Fitz.

Related Research Articles

<i>A Touch of Frost</i> television detective series

A Touch of Frost is a television detective series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV from 6 December 1992 until 5 April 2010, initially based on the Frost novels by R. D. Wingfield. Writing credit for the three episodes in the first 1992 series went to Richard Harris.

<i>Cracker</i> (U.S. TV series)

Cracker is an American crime drama series produced by Granada Entertainment based upon the British television crime drama of the same name created by Jimmy McGovern. That series ran on ABC from September 18, 1997, until January 24, 1998. An "innovative but disturbing" take on the standard police-detective genre, the Americanized Cracker consists of sixteen one-hour episodes set in Los Angeles. It stars Robert Pastorelli as criminal psychologist Gerry 'Fitz' Fitzgerald and a young Josh Hartnett. Robbie Coltrane, the star of the original series, appears as a villain in one episode. The remade show was broadcast as Fitz in some countries, including the UK.

<i>Taggart</i> television series

Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who wrote many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network. It originally ran as the miniseries Killer from 6 until 20 September 1983, before a full series was commissioned that ran from 2 July 1985 until 7 November 2010. The series revolved around a group of detectives, initially in the Maryhill CID of Strathclyde Police, though various storylines were set in other parts of Greater Glasgow and in other areas of Scotland. The team operated out of the fictional John Street police station.

<i>Strangers</i> (1978 TV series) UK police TV series

Strangers is a British television crime drama series, principally written and created by Murray Smith, first broadcast on ITV on 5 June 1978. The series, featuring the characters of Detective Sergeant George Bulman and his assistant Detective Constable Derek Willis, was a spin-off from the 1976 TV series The XYY Man, adapted from the novels of Kenneth Royce. The series was first suggested by Granada Television executives, who in 1977, outlined their plan to devise a new series to feature the regular characters of Bulman and Willis.

<i>Bulman</i> Granada TV series

Bulman is a British television crime drama series, principally written and created by Murray Smith, that first broadcast on ITV on 5 June 1985. The series, featuring retired ex-cop George Bulman and his assistant Lucy McGinty, was a spin-off from the 1978 TV series Strangers, itself a spin-off of the 1976 TV series, The XYY Man, adapted from the novels of Kenneth Royce. Produced by Granada Television, Bulman ran for two series, with the final episode broadcasting on 8 August 1987.

Kieran O'Brien is an English actor.

<i>Trial & Retribution</i> television series

Trial & Retribution is a feature-length ITV police procedural television drama series that first aired on ITV1 on 19 October 1997. Written and devised by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect, each episode was typically broadcast over two nights. David Hayman stars as the main protagonist of the series, DCS Michael "Mike" Walker. Throughout the series, he has two main sidekicks: DI Pat North in Series 1-6 and DCI Róisín Connor in Series 7-12.

Blue Murder is a British crime drama television series based in Manchester, originally broadcast on ITV from 2003 until 2009, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis and Ian Kelsey as DI Richard Mayne. Five series of the programme were broadcast over the course of six years. Reruns have aired on BBC One

<i>Accused</i> (TV series) TV series

Accused is a British television anthology series created by Jimmy McGovern. The drama series first aired on 15 November 2010 on BBC One and has run for two series. Each episode follows a different character as they await their verdict in court, and tells the story behind how they find themselves accused. The series has featured actors and actresses such as Christopher Eccleston, Benjamin Smith, Juliet Stevenson, Andy Serkis, Marc Warren, Naomie Harris, Sean Bean and Anne-Marie Duff as the accused in each episode.

<i>HolbyBlue</i> television series

HolbyBlue is a British police procedural drama series. The show revolves around the daily lives of a number of police officers working at Holby South police station. The cast for series one included Jimmy Akingbola as PC Neil Parker, Joe Jacobs as PC William "Billy" Jackson, David Sterne as Sergeant Edward 'Mac' McFadden, Cal Macaninch as DI John Keenan, James Hillier as Sergeant Christian Young, Kacey Ainsworth as Inspector Jenny Black, Richard Harrington as DS Luke French, Zöe Lucker as Kate Keenan, Chloe Howman as PC Kelly Cooper, Kieran O'Brien as PC Robert Clifton, Tim Pigott-Smith as DCI Harry Hutchinson, Sara Powell as Rachel Barker and Elaine Glover as PC Lucy Slater. Velibor Topić and Julie Cox joined the cast in a recurring capacity as drug baron Neculai Stenga and Mandy French, Luke French's wife. By the end of series one, Pigott-Smith and Topic both departed the show. Series two saw the introductions of Oliver Milburn as DCI Scott Vaughan and James Thornton as Constable Jake Loughton. Stephanie Langton took over from Julie Cox in series two to continue playing the role of Mandy.

<i>Prey</i> (UK TV series) 2014 crime thriller TV series

Prey is a television crime thriller first broadcast on ITV, 28 April 2014 at 9pm. ITV first announced the new commission on their official Twitter account on 23 August 2013. A second series was announced in April 2015 and began airing on 9 December 2015.

<i>Supply & Demand</i> (TV series) television series

Supply & Demand is a British television crime drama series, written and devised by Lynda La Plante, first broadcast as a single feature-length pilot on ITV on 5 February 1997. The series follows the work of ESUS, a crack team of detectives tasked with investigating some of the country's biggest criminal importers and smugglers. The pilot was written in 1996, the year that La Plante's most notable television series, Prime Suspect, went on hiatus. Adé Sapara, Eamonn Walker, Benedict Wong, Juliet Aubrey and Ramon Tikaram were credited as principal cast members for the pilot.

<i>Unforgotten</i> television series

Unforgotten is a British crime drama television series, which initially aired on ITV on 8 October 2015. It is written by creator Chris Lang and directed by Andy Wilson. The programme follows two London detectives, DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan, as they solve cold cases of disappearance and murder.

In Defence is a four-part British television legal drama series, created and partially written by Mike Cullen, that first broadcast on ITV on 26 June 2000. The series stars Ross Kemp and Sophie Okonedo, and follows Sam Lucas (Kemp), a lawyer and legal detective, who takes it upon himself to investigate cases where the police have failed to uncover enough evidence to secure a conviction. The series was co-written by Maxwell Young and Abigail Fray, and was initially billed as a "star-vehicle" for Kemp, as part of a "golden handcuffs" deal to lure Kemp away from the BBC. The series broadcast weekly until 17 July 2000.

<i>Crime Stories</i> (UK TV series) television series

Crime Stories is a British television crime drama series that aired on ITV from 12 November until 7 December 2012. Described as "groundbreaking" television, the series was one of a number of series developed by Paul Marquess which makes use of a documentary-style feel and unscripted dialogue. The series was panned by critics and viewers alike and was axed by ITV after just one series. The series made use of the set previously occupied by fellow ITV drama The Bill, for which Marquess served as executive producer from 2002–05.

The Loch is a six-part British television drama series, created by screenwriter Stephen Brady, that first broadcast on ITV on 11 June 2017. The series follows DS Annie Redford, a small town police officer with the Scottish Highland Police as she investigates the murder of piano teacher Niall Swift, who is found dead at the bottom of a cliff in the picturesque village of Lochnafoy, Loch Ness. When it becomes apparent that part of Swift's brain has been removed, and a human heart belonging to another victim is found close by, Annie's team realise they are searching for a serial killer. In response, Glasgow based major investigation detective DCI Lauren Quigley is brought in to lead the enquiry.

References

  1. 'Head case' SMH.com.au; 30 September 2004
  2. From the business card that Fitz presents to his stalker in the episode "True Romance".