Police procedural dramas are the house sparrows of the TV schedule: you can’t blame one of them for strapping on a jazzy tailfeather and trying to stand out from the others. Suspects (Channel 5), now in its fourth series, features unscripted scenes, in which the cast improvise dialogue within a prepared story outline. I think the aim is a documentary feel, but what actually makes it to the screen has far more in common with constructed reality shows such as Made in Chelsea. Nothing can be truly natural when everyone on screen is visibly searching for their next line.
If an actor is given the time to know their character inside and out, improvisation can be thrilling to watch. But on a fast-turnaround cop show, the resulting discourse is nothing but face-value plot conveyance. The light and shade of ordinary conversation, the layers of meaning in a single sentence, are lost.
“With his mother’s funeral looming, it was very out of character,” says a worried dad about his awol son in a way that no person ever would. It’s not the actor’s fault; in fact, with no writer responsible for the dialogue, it isn’t anyone’s fault that the “script” is 100% subtext-free and entirely designed to communicate exposition.
Fay Ripley and the cast of more than capable co-stars are effectively asked to become writers on the hop while also doing their own jobs. The words that spring forth are often much further away from natural speech than they would be in a carefully scripted scene in something more conventional. While the experience of filming the show might be fun and challenging for the actors, it lacks all nuance for the viewer.
So how do you represent reality on television? If the aim is no-frills, handheld authenticity, Suspects proves that the one thing you cannot dispense with is the script. Someone with real expertise needs to craft a screenplay, lace it with just the right amount of humour, subplot, character detail and so on.
This first episode follows the plight of a missing squaddie, his fretful dad and a group of dissembling army colleagues who keep changing their story about the night he went missing. After only a few minutes, the lack of authenticity in the dialogue clunks and bangs like a late-era Tom Waits album.
“It’s word for word, you know?” says one of the cops about the witnesses, who have all suspiciously and simultaneously changed their evidence. “It’s as if they’ve sat down in a room together and said: ‘You say this, I’ll say this.’” He could be describing the show he is in, and sparks and smoke are pouring out of my television.
At points, I can almost see each actor’s brain twitching furiously as it churns out the next: “I’m starting to really worry about Pete.” It doesn’t allow for the suspension of disbelief and the effect is quite alienating. It’s one thing to improvise in rehearsal and then collaborate with a writer to produce a final script. That seems to work well for Mike Leigh. But to point cameras at the actors while they’re in the process of creating – like Monty Python’s live novel-writing from Wessex – produces such a peculiar tone that it jars you right out of any dramatic reverie. No director would aim the lens at some carpenters hammering together the sets, or the costume designer pinning up a hem mid-scene. Why are the words considered the most throwaway part of a drama production? They are absolutely the most important thing.
Much has been written about the return of Peep Show (Channel 4) for its ninth and final series. But if you’re looking for a script with not a single word out of place, this week’s episode is hard to beat. Mark (David Mitchell) has a second crack at seducing April (Catherine Shepherd), the history student and part-time shoe-shop worker from series two, who is now a successful author with an abhorrent husband. Mark invites her to a nonexistent dinner party. Of course, this is Peep Show. So the guest list includes flatmate Jeremy and the two people Jeremy is currently having sex with (a couple he is also life-coaching).
This valedictory series could so easily have relied on the considerable audience love that still exists for Channel 4’s longest running sitcom, knocking out a few greatest hits before taking the applause. But the scripts keep getting better. Mark’s hellish egg-and-lettuce dinner party gets to the truth of what it is to be a selfish, flawed human, far better than any po-faced improvisation ever could. Don’t underestimate the need for a good writer.
