The Street – BBC1
Jimmy McGovern’s righteous reputation — he is one of the Twelve Apostles of modern British screenwriting — became apparent within minutes of the new series kicking off. The plot was simple: principled pub landlord Bob Hoskins bars a weedy teenage kid, Callum, from his pub, after he smokes in the toilets. In retaliation, Callum’s dad, local gangster Thomas Miller (Liam Cunningham), says he will come to the pub at 3.30pm tomorrow and break Hoskins’s ribs unless he unbars his son. Hoskins remains obdurate. And that’s the entirety of the set-up, five minutes in.
So having gone with such a clean, unadorned set-up — in itself the casual gift of a master — the joy of the next hour was seeing just how McGovern was going to play it all out. The late Alan Coren’s advice to writers was: “When you hit on a third thought, pick up the pen. That one is just yours.” With McGovern, however, what you’re dealing with is what appears to be the ninth thought along. He can bust a third-act twist that will make you simply stand up and applaud the screen.
So here’s Bob Hoskins, due to be beaten up, at 3.30pm. Where would any other screenwriter take this? Let’s go through the possibilities:
1. The local community come together and save Hoskins and “their” pub from the bully. You can never crush the spirit of the people! We are at our best when we are united. Yeah!
2. Hoskins’s wife and the gangster’s wife get together and, through some loveable fishwifey collusion, save their daft menfolk from their own foibles. Tsk, those men! Let’s all have a lovely Baileys anna ’ug.
3. Hoskins’s kids and the gangsters’ kids get together and through some inspiring can-do young-folk idealism, and some side-plot to do with “the internet”, save the old folks from themselves. Tsk, those adults! Let’s have great party, on a roof, with sexy teenage kissing. Cor.
4. Something to do with someone finding out they have cancer. Realisations about the important things in life all round. Sad.
5. Something to do with an unexpected cameo from Sue Johnston. Probably involves a secret abortion in 1971. Crying.
6. Plane crashes into the pub. Tsk, those Iranian bombers! Politics.
7. A letter arrives … from an alien! Hoskins has Mars powers, and will laser the gangster with his eyes! Sci-fi. Woot!
8. The Moldavian revolutionaries massacre everyone, except Joan Collins.
So what did McGovern do? In the event, he sent proud Hoskins off for his beating. Then he sent the battered Hoskins round to the gangster’s house, and told him that he and his son were now welcome at his pub, and that drinks tonight would be “on the ’aaaaase”.
Standing behind his bar that night, Hoskins could barely see through the stitches to his eye. And when the gangster and his son came in, he started to pour their drinks.
“Do you think I should have barred you?” he asked Callum, the gangster’s son, as the glasses slowly filled.
Callum, actually quite a sweet lad, nodded.
Hoskins served him his lager — finished with a cocktail umbrella and a pink straw.
“If you’re bringing him up like a tart, then I’m gonna to serve him like a tart,” Hoskins bawled, in front of the whole pub.
Callum looked at his dad with tears in his eyes. His dad wasraising him like “a tart”, and they both knew it. Hoskins had won. As a final twist, Hoskins then kicked out every single customer in the pub, for not supporting him in the first place.
It was a conclusion only Jimmy McGovern would have come up with — as unique and wonderful as a fingerprint on a wineglass that, on closer examination, looks exactly like Ava Gardner’s face. As far as scriptwriting goes in Britain, everyone else still has to step to this.
