Rarely does a TV show make you feel simultaneously proud and ashamed of your profession.
But The Hack manages it. Proud, because of the tenacity of the reporting that saw the phone hacking scandal finally exposed. Ashamed, because of the journalists who perpetrated the whole thing in the first place.
ITV has made a habit of commissioning activist television in recent years. Following on from the smash-hit that was Mr Bates vs The Post Office – and ahead of the harrowing upcoming drama about the tainted blood scandal – The Hack tells a story that will probably make most people of a certain age twitch with recognition.
The phone hacking scandal is something that feels well known but little understood. This version of the story, based on true events (with a few legally judicious disclaimers thrown in) throws us into the deep end: with David Tennant’s irascible journalist Nick Davies, who is doggedly convinced that journalists are abusing their power to sell papers.
While the News of the World was previously convicted of phone hacking, a source (here codenamed Mr Apollo, never named in real life, wittily played by Adrian Lester) says it was far more widespread than the paper admitted in court.
Instead of one or two phones being hacked, he says, it was actually more like 3,000. And the editor of the News of the World at the time, Andy Coulson, is just about to enter 10 Downing Street as David Cameron’s director of communications.
The premise is simple, Mr Apollo says: old-school phones had a PIN number that could be used to access their voice messages, even from other phones. On factory settings, that PIN was 1234, and most people never thought to change it. The result? Unscrupulous ears could listen in on messages not intended for their ears, with devastating results.
From there, the show dives into what exactly those results are. The first episode is given over to Davies, as he pursues lead after lead in an attempt to crack the case open – despite the establishment closing ranks to protect itself.
The second swerves into the lives of those people affected, such as Robert Carlyle’s former Metropolitan Police detective Dave Cook. He is tasked with investigating the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, but ends up drawing a surprising amount of tabloid attention himself. It’s one step in the road that will ultimately lead to Milly Dowler, as well as the discovery of a rat’s nest of police corruption.
Tennant is flawless: unlikeable, disturbingly chameleonic. Of course he is – as is Toby Jones as the embattled Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian who made the call to publish Davies’ story, and backed him to the hilt throughout the legal wrangling that followed as the Murdoch press went to war over Davies’ accusations.
Every actor is excellent, and the series is stacked. If The Hack has flaws, it’s in how confusing and self-referential the whole thing is.
Doubtless due to legal constraints (insiders told the i that lawyers had “crawled over every line of script”), the show insists on having Tennant break the fourth wall repeatedly to offer exposition or insights into Davies’ character. Things like “Mr Apollo’s not his real name. I’ve never named him and I never will,” or, when introducing his son, “I won’t name him. Let’s call him Beans.” As might be obvious, the show also dives into Davies’ private life, including the abuse he received at the hands of his mother as a child, which feels slightly unnecessary and detracts from the story.
These asides to camera are probably the easiest solution to navigating the dense thicket of details, but it does lend the early episodes a rather self-satisfied air that ends up grating. Plus, it makes things extra confusing: a meta commentary on top of an already complex story.
Still. The power of the thing is undiminished. It’s a welcome refresher on one of the biggest abuses of power of our time – and a reminder of lessons that seem to be forgotten already.
The Hack is streaming now on ITV
