BBC One’s Bodyguard centres around police Sergeant David Budd, an Afghan War veteran who is as psychologically brittle as he is heroic. As part of the Specialist Protection Branch of the London Police Service, he is charged with protecting Home Secretary Julia Montague who stands for all that he abhors.
The police department, the secret service, Britain’s power corridors; Jed Mercurio’s plot intertwines them all.
Who I was before I entered the circle of enemies
I do not remember
On entering, there was the clenching nearness,
One I did not know of
After the escape, though I be free,
the circle of enemies will remain unchanged
Whether I die, or kill, this shall be undecided
When a man asleep, awakes, and walks
He shall never again ken the world of dreams
Under that light of final resolve
will everything be equal?
A coward on one side, and a Man on the other
And at the needlepoint in the centre, a half-truth
These verses are from Dilip Chitre’s poem; one that Om Puri narrates to Smita Patil in the film Ardh Satya (1983). It was probably one of the first films in Indian cinema with the undercurrent of human failings that was disturbingly relatable. It would be another five years before Kamal Haasan would make Sathya (1988) with a similar bedrock of realism, but much less nuance.
Jed Mercurio’s (writer) Bodyguard, starring Richard Madden (GoT, Cinderella) and Keeley Hawes, who’s been in British TV for almost three decades, is the Ardh Satya of our times.
Jed Mercurio, Missionary of Disillusionment
It’s alright if you haven’t heard of Jed Mercurio. He’s worked mainly, although extensively, in British television. After a few years as a Flying Officer in the Royal Air Force, he wrote his first series Cardiac Arrest (1994) under a pseudonym, during practice as a hospital physician. It is considered one of the most realistic medical dramas of all time, according to a poll of doctors.
But why it stands out is that it dissects the people who ply the profession, lays them bare, all of their failings and egos exposed. Mercurio went on to script another award-winning medical drama, Bodies, set in an obstetrics and gynaecology ward. In the first episode, one of the doctors ‘accidentally’ sterilises a patient, who had actually come in for a procedure that would enable her to get pregnant. The resident specialist and the nurses manage to brush it under the carpet. Before the episode ends, the Chief doctor prioritises an in-house medical conference over a 67-year-old cancer patient. The patient dies.
Jed Mercurio’s perspective is not dystopian. Nor is it contrarian. The characters don’t come through as heartless villains. The doctors who save your life, the politicians who run your country and the policemen charged with your protection; they are all as flawed, clueless, righteous and psychotic as you or I. And therefore, scary.
This is precisely why Bodyguard parallels Ardh Satya, whose worldview, although not cynical, is as real as it gets. And surprisingly, therein lies the drama.
Plot Twists vs Spoilers
I apologise in advance for the alliterative pun, but the plots that Mercurio charts in his shows are mercurial in nature, for want of a better word.
Bodyguard, the show in question, is four episodes old as I write this review, and already one of the main protagonists is dead.
Oops. Sorry for the spoiler, but it’s all for the greater good.
Episode 4 aired on 9 September. A day later, Keeley Hawes, one of the leads, tweeted this and almost broke the internet.
Twitter erupted in self-righteous indignation. There were people who hadn’t watched the show yet, who felt cheated. The same day, Radio Times, a magazine, rubbed salt over said wounds.
It took viewers in the UK a few days to agree on the right etiquette regarding spoilers (that will definitely be transgressed). And now the wait for the next episode begins.
Everything about the show is tailored to create a sense of immediacy and impending doom. The jump-cut edits, the almost bokeh-like close ups that let you feel the dilation of the subject’s nostrils (John Lee) and most of all, the music (Ruth Barret) and sound design.
In fact, it is hard to distinguish the line between the score and the sound effect.
The chemistry between Keeley and Richard is electric. The viewer is made to feel the literal pull of desire through a combination of sound design and music that seems to rise almost infinitely.
The Usual Suspects
A case can be made for a familiar ensemble of actors, appearing in different dramas, portraying completely different roles. There is the assurance of the expected level of talent. Also, the familiarity in reading the faces and body language of the actors, and taking in layered meanings that go beyond just the one show.
This phenomenon was used to great effect by Tamil cinema’s M G Ramachandran. For a five-year cycle, he would retain the same heroine and supporting cast, before moving on to the next. He remains the biggest star of Tamil cinema, even taking Rajinikanth into account.
And then there is the delectable unexpectedness of a completely new plot.
Almost all of Jed Mercurio’s dramas have the same supporting cast. In fact, Keeley Hawes, who plays one of the leads in Bodyguard, was a crowd favourite in Mercurio’s other award winning series, Line of Duty, in which she played a detective framed for a crime she didn’t commit, and is later killed.
Richard Madden (the other lead in Bodyguard) too featured in an earlier TV movie adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
An Ode to Richard Madden
Speaking of Richard Madden, the 32-year-old seems to have torn out the ‘prince charming’ he essayed in Cinderella before signing up for Bodyguard. He’s more sinewy and is somehow Sgt David Budd, the Afghan war veteran, even beneath his skin. You can feel his nervous tension even as he walks away from the camera. Imagine the close-up shot of him with a gun to his head, while he tries to pull the trigger.
Sorry for the spoiler, but such is life.
I have a bone to pick with Sacred Games, and this is nothing more than a question of my individual sensibilities. For all its realism, and gore, and the use of f!@k and wh*re, it makes Gods and Demons of its characters.
This has been the malaise of Bollywood and of screenwriting that creators who aspire for realism are unable to shake off.
And this is where Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard, and Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya stand apart, and tall.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)