DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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‘You’ve got to love the scabs’
Angus Reid speaks to IRVINE WELSH about the art and the politics behind his popular ITV series Crime
SERVANT OF THE STATE: (Left) Stephen Dougray Scott as DI Ray Lennox in Crime second series; (right) Irvine Welsh
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STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
AS he describes the unfolding narrative of his TV series Crime, two states of mind are going on in writer Irvine Welsh’s feel for it: both a serene strategy, and a wrecker’s glee. He has taken the most popular TV genre, the “pacey, entertaining cop drama” and turned it inside out.
“The biggest point for me” says Welsh, “is that Lennox (the hero) is NOT a cop. I’m not really interested in someone who is a servant of the state in that way.”
The plan has always been to use the crime genre as a “Trojan horse” to capture the audience, and then to turn it into something else: “an existential thriller,” the story of a man “trying to solve the mystery of himself.”
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