Solitarily Spooky: The Secret of Crickley Hall

Christ I hope James Arthur clinches the X Factor title this year. Imagine if the bookies have it right, and Jahmene Douglas becomes the series’ umpteenth cupcakes-and-sprinkles champion. Could we really stomach another catchy but exasperatingly poor winners single, crooned by a fresh-faced Boys category winner who’ll have spectacularly dematerialized within a year (sorry Shane Ward, I’m sure you were huge in Asia…) I’d decamp (and camp up) straight to Strictly. James’ victory, though, might just salvage what remains of the show’s waning credibility; he would still tick the boxes of an X Factor winner (talent, tears, Tulisa-approved), but he’s also got that edge (and the tattoos to back it up). I’m all for tradition and conformity, but where’s the harm in shaking things up a bit at the same time? It’s this very blend of convention and innovation that scooped the Beeb’s The Secret of Crickley Hall my approval when I caught up with its first offering this weekend.

The 3-episode mini series, which stars Tom Ellis and Suranne Jones as parents who ship their family to a mansion up north after their son goes missing, has all the trademarks of a bog-standard ghost-thriller: creaking doors are ten a penny; sinister locals queue up around the block; and cryptically unopened cupboards and cabinets line the set. The name of village the Londoners choose for their northern jaunt? Devil’s Cleave. Doesn’t quite scream Escape to the Country, does it? Hell, by the end of the first hour, translucent kiddie figures are scampering all over the place as gusts of inexplicable wind sweep through the eerie estate. The show packs in more tried and tested horror genre markers than Helen Flanagan’s packed in Bushtucker trials, and so many make-you-jump moments it’s like sitting on a hot poker.

Something old, something new: Jones and Ellis star in the supernatural drama

But, crucially, the show also succeeds in extricating itself from the tangle of previous telly-horrors. The plot is driven by the disappearance of the Caleigh family’s son, Cam, when Mum Eve (Jones) deems his frolicking around in a deserted play-park the perfect time to nab herself some shut-eye. As the anniversary of Cam’s abduction approaches, Eve’s husband Gabe (Ellis) opts to take a job in Devil’s Cleave to give his family some respite from all the trauma. Nice one, Gabe. The Caleighs find themselves setting up home in the more-haunted-than-the-Shrieking-Shack Crickley Hall, a former orphanage where kids had been subjected to beatings during the war. Following a smattering of gloomy goings-on, Eve rapidly becomes convinced that the ghoulish infants could help her track down her missing child and resolves to stay within Crickley’s boundaries, spirits or not. What the disappearance preamble adds, then, is that staid and reflective twist that too many supernatural dramas try to compensate for with yet more spooks. Indeed, the show could almost meander along quite nicely without the poltergeist element.

Also stopping Crickley from becoming too Casper-clichéd is its making use of a dual narrative. The first episode alternates between the present day and 1943, when new teacher Nancy Linnet (Olivia Cooke) joins the orphanage’s staff and promptly takes issue with its disciplinarian masters, brother-sister duo Augustus and Magda Cribben (Douglas Henshall and Sarah Smart), who, Nancy soon learns, have all the compassion of the still-raging Hitler regime. This is where the show benefits most from being a novel adaptation, with the plucky pre-feminist squaring up to the brutal despot and the constant costume allusions to WWII Britain coming across as both subtle and historically entertaining. Bridging the gap between the two locales is former Crickley gardener Percy Judd (Ian De Caestecker and David Warner), who we see metamorphose from cheeky-chappy courter of Nancy to ill-boding graveyard dweller, and who provides enough continuity to stop the format getting too disjointed

Eerie: An elderly Percy tends to the graves of Devil's Cleave

With Sunday night telly the reserve of heavyweight ratings winners this time of year, schedulers must be quietly confident of the show’s ability to reel back an audience for three week’s running. And rightly so: Crickley’s first episode, despite its steady momentum, refuses to give away too much in its first screening. When Gabe takes a stroll through Devil’s Cleave’s churchyard (where else?), he learns of a flood back in 1943 that had wiped out the bulk of Crickley’s former inhabitants: but how do the Cribben’s play into it? References to water persist through the show, with damp footsteps and the well in the basement of the family’s new crib looking likely to make a bigger splash over the coming weeks. Nancy’s uncovering of orphan Stefan’s (Kian Parsiani’s) abuse and what slimy prefect Maurice (Bill Millner) might or might not have had to do with it still needs mopping up, as does what happened to Nancy herself, whilst a sleeping Eve being visited by an apparition of Mr. Cribben at the episode’s close provides a sure-fire way to lure viewers away from I’m A Celeb when the shows clash later tonight.

Swear you've seen her face before?

Although the show gets a smidge too sensationalist with all the supernatural stuff at times, then, it mostly makes for a stand-up Sunday night drama. Of course, the bulk of the credit needs to be given to the author of the novel on which the series is based, James Herbert, and to former Doctor Who bigwig Joe Ahearne, who wrote and directed this adaptation. But hats off, also, to Jones and Ellis, who prove here that they have traversed their soap-opera beginnings with skill; not once during last week’s episode does one expect to see Steve McDonald leap out behind one of the many locked doors, and Ellis’ former role as EastEnders doctor Oliver Cousins might as well have drowned back in 1943, too. The pair’s chemistry is bang-on, and their subtle underacting meant I had raised hairs rather than eyebrows. The adult cast, however, is marginally overshadowed by the youngest Caleigh child, Cally, played by Pixie Davies. But then, when they're up against the Oreo-advert kid (‘I don’t think you’re ready yet’), what chance do a couple of ghosts really stand?

Secret State Squash: Episode One of C4's Busy Political Thriller

Is it me, or is the British high street wackier than Wonderland right now? I took a trip through town today and, five minutes in, found myself baffled. Mannequins can’t quite make their minds up on whether it’s New Years Eve or Christmas morning, kids are still scuttling around clad in their Halloween finery, and councils keep shooting off firework displays whenever anyone mentions (whisper it) sundown. It’s like 4 weeks on The X Factor rolled into one, big, trans-holiday mess. But we can scarcely lay blame on the British calendar for the night-before-finals-style cramming. In fact, overkill seems to be as ubiquitous as Bieber right now: second year deadlines keep on coming in packs of four or five; the box office has picked up a pesky habit of releasing all its worthwhile films on the same weekend; and I won’t even go into the horde of holidays-are-coming-style campaigns that have thronged their way into our advert breaks this week. I can almost feel the Boxing Day blues already…

In the deep end: Dawkins finds himself leading government 

It’s precisely this wall-to-wall way of the world that Deputy Prime Minister Tom Dawkins (Gabriel Byrne) found himself up against in the first installment of C4’s new Wednesday night drama, Secret State. When the plant of an American petrochemical giant exploded on British turf, desolating a city and killing dozens, the government found itself in the firing line. The PM made a mad dash across the pond to liaise with the big wigs of the firm, Petro-Fex, leaving his immediate junior to take the flack. When he got a call from the AWOL premier’s plane, telling him to sit tight and that a hefty compensation agreement had been negotiated, Dawkins breathed a little easier. Momentarily. The PM’s plane then fell off the radar and was later recovered as mere wreckage, cabinet ministers began sparring for the now-vacant top job, MI5 started stalking a cryptic journalist (played by Gina McKee) who claimed to have insider knowledge of scandal at the heart of the Petro-Fex, and the pathologist examining its victims revealed he’d found something sinister in the bodies. Oh, and the election was just around the corner. Alas, it never rains pours but it pours monsoons (the one exception, for me anyway, being internship offers…).

Gina McKee stars as quick-witted journalist Ellis Kane

I’d pick a plenteous plot over a pointless one any day, but Secret State did get a smidge too hectic in places; at times, it seemed like three standalone dramas had been shoehorned into one. MI5 bugging the phone calls of a wily reporter threatening to cause chaos before an election? I’d watch it. The tactics of fellow political party members lusting for promotion? I’d watch it. The death of a pathologist who was set to smear the reputation of an American corporation? I’d probably watch it, albeit whilst bemoaning the fact that I’d seen it a dozen times before. And the storyline didn’t get any tamer as the credits drew closer, either, with a potential terrorism subplot and the minutes of the former PM’s meeting with the Petro-Fex heads looking likely to crash the already crowded party in time for next week. Character dynamics, also, gradually became harder than a Kardashian to keep up with (geddit?). By the end of Wednesday’s episode, two junior MI5 workers had jostled their way into the frame and seemed bent on getting in as much sexual chemistry as they could without us knowing their names. Neither the time nor the place, guys.

Shady character? The show hinted of a dark side to the new PM

Despite the elaborate plot, though, the show did allow ample time for audiences to fall for its benign and bumbling hero. He might have spent about eighty percent of the show looking like he’d rather be in bed with a crossword and a stiff Ovaltine, but Dawkins’ character had enough grit in the remaining twenty to keep us on side. ‘You might feel, as I do,’ he said as he addressed to the press outside Number 10, ‘that our nation is being sorely tested.’ Dawkins remained inviolable to the cutthroat tactics favored by Foreign and Home Secretaries Ros Yelland (Sylvestra La Touzel) and Felix Durrell (Rupert Graves) as they went about vying for the premiership, and vowed not to let the Petro-Fex disaster go unavenged. When Chief Whip John Hodder (Charles Dance) revealed that the public wanted to see him take the reigns after the demise of the party’s head, Dawkins’ muted self-efficacy and quiet resolve were played out in just the right ratio. With their eye on the next three episodes of the series, the show’s producers ensured Dawkins’ goody-goody bit wouldn’t begin to go stale anytime soon, either. As he met his ex-wife and asked after his estranged kids, the seeds that Dawkins had a dark underbelly were sown, and, when his former MI5 buddy Tony (Douglas Hodge) assured his secretary that former army captain Tom ‘wasn’t always the paragon of virtue he is now,’ those seeds turned into thickets.

In fact, once one got past the scene-happy scripting, it was easy to see the show’s listless merits: it captured spot-on the sobriety favored by ITV’s top weekday dramas; it never once cheapened itself by focusing on the big bang at the Petro-Fex plant, or the subsequent wailings of the survivor’s families; and it capitalized on London’s hot spots well enough to put 2012’s royal processions to shame. Homeland still has my vote as far as C4’s political dramas go, but Secret State might just shape up to be a solid opposition

Ready, Set, Sing: X Factor Live Blog

I don’t set much stock by maxims. The adage was old 20 years ago; by now it’s senile. A man isn’t known by the company he keeps; he’s known by his Facebook friends. First come, first served? Not if Ticketmaster has anything to do with it. And don’t even get me started on the ‘like father, like son’ claptrap. For all the proverbial poppycock, though, there’s at least one dictum I’ve always been more than happy to go with. Slow and steady? Sounds like my kind of race.

Indeed, I’ve never been much bothered by my alacrity aversion; give me the tortoise over the hare any day. And in 21 years, Sports Day relays excluded, my leisurely pace hasn’t done me any harm (and probably saved me a bomb in speeding fines). For this week’s X Factor blog, however, I’ve vowed to crank up the tempo. It seems like anyone who’s anyone in television journalism has had a bash at live-blogging, so tonight I’m saying to hell with the pensive, paced approach and giving it a whirl myself. Here’s to hoping I can be a smidge more eloquent than Nicole if-she’s-sober-I’m-the-Pope Scherzinger.

8:24 A couple of preliminary thoughts: 1) Where was Dermot’s dance? 2) Why is Gangnam Style still legal? 3) Why has nobody given Gary Barlow a razor?

Under the weather: Lucy left the show earlier today

8:26 So Lucy Spraggan’s dropped out of the competition due to illness. Have these people not heard of PR?  Nowadays, dodgy health is a must have for pop stars. Malaria didn’t do Chezza much harm in the long run, now, did it? The VTs would have been perfect. Lucy could have whimpered her way through interviews whilst Rylan Clarke encouraged her to consume maximum amounts of fluid and Gary Barlow sat looking severe in the corner. Pretty much like every other week, then…

8:30 Last week, Rylan promised to ‘strip things down’ to prove his singing credentials to Gary. This is stripped down? Brian Friedman might have spread his wings, but the new production team have made sure Rylan’s performance has about all the subtlety of a Britney Spears breakdown.

8:33 It's crunch time: how did the new, more muted Rylan go down with Gazza? ‘I’ve got a feeling that might have been your last performance on the X Factor.’ Could have gone better.

Who's judging who, here?

8:36 Nothing like an advert break to put a heaving commercial dampener on proceedings. Anyone would think ITV cared about profit…

8:42 After landing themselves in the bottom two last week, this week’s Union J VT seems keen to let the lads’ larger-than-Gary’s-ego personalities shine through. Good luck with that one.

8:45 Union J’s cover of Taylor Swift’s Love Story, if truth be told, isn’t half bad. One Direction they ain’t, but at least the dancing’s been reigned in. A bit.

8:47 Gary jokes that George has ‘too much hair’ and doesn’t quite blend with the band. Yes Gary, it is good hair, but that doesn’t mean you should go for the same style around your jaw.

8:53 Is it just me, or is Kye Sones so cringe-worthily mediocre that he gives you face ache? He seems like a nice enough guy, but we’ve already had ten Matt Cardles off the back of this show, thanks very much.

8:57 More adverts: delectable. Why, oh why, is this show not on BBC?

Credible: James Arthur has emerged as a fan favourite

9:01 Next up: James Arthur. Someone pass me the valium. This new edgy side to contestants should have been booted out along with Cher Lloyd.

9:03 After a masterclass with No Doubt, James is tackling their signature track Don’t Speak. He might not be much of a smiler, but Jimmy’s one of the few acts that’s managed salvage some authenticity as the weeks have gone by. And this performance is the best so far. No Doubt about it (sorry). But if he wins, will we be handed some raw, moody number as our 2012 Christmas Number One? Think I’d have to stick to Jingle Bells.

9:08 Not got much of a way with words, this one, has he?

9:14 Time for Ella Henderson. Last week, I was let down by Ella’s butchering of Evanescence; it was all too try hard. So what’s the ‘simple, piano ballad’ she’s opted for to get things back on track? Katy Perry’s Firework, apparently…

9:17 Ten seconds in, and Ella’s doing the track justice. I know people parrot on about it, but this girl’s 16, for crying out loud. The show’s taken a lot of stick for making cash cows out of kids, but having a teenage girl on the box without a baby bump in tow makes a nice change (see EastEnders: Lola Pearce. Actually, see EastEnders: most 16 year old girls).

9:20 Looks like Nicole’s been on the sauce. ‘I thought I was in a movie’. Someone get her a kebab; she’s done for the night.

9:22 Seems District 3 are also taking the getting-to-know-you angle. Unlike Union J, though, these guys do seem to have something about them; they’re a YouTube hit, were legitimately childhood friends and even hold their own with Gwen Stefani.

9:24 Shame they can’t sing.

9:28 Well that went down about as well as Tulisa in a nunnery.

9:32 A Twilight advert, a DFS jingle and a Calpol 6+ plug. Interesting mix.

9:35 Time for Jahmene, and this week he’s gone for the Beyoncé classic Listen. Sounds to me like that high note’s a tad out of little J’s reach. He can hold a tune, but I’ve seen more personality from my wastepaper bin. God, imagine if they pair him up with Leona Lewis in the final. Plus he’s downright creepy. Not quite what the show needs as its new poster boy…

Would he be missed? Christopher hasn't made many friends backstage

9:48 I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Christopher. It all started so well; his first audition had the semi-sob story, the shakes and the solid song. And now what? He’s hounded by ‘diva’ headlines, he’s rumored to be vastly unpopular backstage, and he’s belting out All By Myself only to be told by Louis Walsh that he isn’t current enough. This is from the man who only just gave up Westlife…

10:00 And we’re done. Jonathan Ross can speak for himself. This brisk thing’s a killer.