Gone but not Unforgotten

Unforgotten director Andy Wilson looks back on six seasons of ITV’s cold-case detective drama and picks out his favourite moments from each one, revealing how they were brought to the screen.

Across six seasons of ITV’s cold-case detective drama Unforgotten, Andy Wilson has been behind the monitor for every single episode as the show’s sole director. It’s a rare feat, matched on the series only by creator Chris Lang as an ever-present writer.

In that time, Wilson has overseen the rise of one of the best crime dramas on British television, with each season bringing together a seemingly disparate group of people, a dead body and two detectives determined to piece together the past to identify the killer.

Season one introduced DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunil ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) as the leading police detectives working the case. Then when Walker’s Cassie tragically died at the end of season four, Sonny’s new partner arrived in S5 in the shape of Sinead Keenan’s DCI Jessica ‘Jess’ James.

Now airing on ITV, season six of Unforgotten finds Jess and Sunny called to the scene of some suspected human remains on Whitney Marsh. Outspoken television commentator Melinda Ricci (MyAnna Buring), Martin ‘Marty’ Baines (Maximilian Fairley) and his mother Dot (Michele Dotrice), Asif Syed (Elham Ehsas) and Juliet Cooper (Victoria Hamilton) may all be linked to the cold case.

The series is produced by Mainstreet Pictures and coproduced by Masterpiece PBS in the US. BBC Studios is the international distributor.

Here, Wilson, who is represented by Casarotto Ramsay, looks back over all six seasons of the series and picks his favourite moments from each.

S1: Eric Slater’s confession
For me, the standout scene in this season was the final revelation of who had actually killed Jimmy Sullivan, the long-dead victim of our cold-case murder. It was three scenes really; 13 pages of confessional monologue broken into three chunks for Tom Courtenay, who played prime suspect Eric Slater.

We had scheduled the shooting of it over two days in a small studio. Tom was in his late 70s at the time and, although he had been word-perfect in previous dialogue scenes, we were obviously taking care that he, and we, had the time to get this climactic monologue right. When we were lit and ready, Tom called me over and said, “Would you mind if I do it all in one go? It’s one scene, really, and I’ve learned it that way.” I agreed, thinking we could always stop and start to get through it.

Then I had a brainwave and asked, “Would you like to do the big close-up first, have it fresh?” Tom replied, “Yes, good idea!” Tom delivered 13 pages word-perfect, an absolutely riveting performance. In the studio you could have heard a pin drop. It lasted 12 minutes. At the end of it, instead of me calling ‘cut,’ the entire crew burst into spontaneous applause. No need for take two. We moved on to coverage and completed all three scenes by that afternoon. About six minutes of that first close-up take is in the final cut. It is sublime.

S2: The pub courtroom
There’s a wonderful scene in season two between Cassie and Colin Osbourne, the character played by Mark Bonnar. Colin is a respected gay barrister who is trying to adopt a daughter with his partner. He is also the ringleader of a historical murder conspiracy where four victims of childhood sexual abuse have agreed to murder each other’s abusers, Strangers on a Train style.

Cassie has followed Colin to a pub where she finds him and his co-conspirators discussing how to deal with the police investigation. The other suspects leave him to talk to Cassie. Colin the barrister knows that as Cassie is alone and off duty, she cannot use anything he says to her as evidence. Consequently he tells her the complete and unvarnished truth about the abuse he suffered as a child, how it felt then and has continued to feel into adulthood. As though defending himself in court, he attempts to convince her to drop the investigation on the grounds that justice has already been served in the punishment of the damage the abuse has caused in his life.

Taking on a monologue of several very emotionally complex pages, Mark Bonnar’s acting is extraordinary, even more so when you know that it was his very first day of shooting on the show. While we were setting up, he asked me what I wanted from him, the character and the story of the abuse. I can recall saying something like, “I just want to hear you say it. It happened to you, so there’s no need to perform it in any way.” It is a beautifully restrained, heartfelt and brave rendition. Mark won a Scottish Bafta for his role, mainly I think because of this scene.

S3: Tim Finch’s killer stare
During a confessional interview, Cassie and Sunny persuade Alex Jennings’ serial killer Dr Tim Finch to take them to the burial site of one of his victims. While confessing his crimes, Finch finds a way of getting under Cassie’s skin. Being an empath, she cannot help but show her genuine understanding of the terror Finch’s victims must have felt at the point of their deaths, and she is visibly disturbed. Finch enjoys seeing Cassie’s emotional discomfort and deliberately designs his comments and revelations about the killings to cause her maximum distress. He enjoys it, just as he had derived pleasure from the distress of his victims.

Later, the police arrive in convoy at the burial site Finch has led them to. As Cassie gets out of her car, Finch aims a terrible and chilling smile in her direction, guessing that the day’s events will likely break her spirit.

When we shot this Hannibal Lecter-ish smile at Cassie, I remember going up to Alex and explaining what I wanted. He said, “You don’t really want that do you? Isn’t it too much?” I replied that of course I wanted it, it was an important beat in Cassie’s journey towards quitting her job. Finch is killing her career with that look. “Oh God! Alright then!” he sighed, then in the shot gave me the most evil, chilling slow-mo serial killer stare and smile I could possibly have hoped for. In Cassie’s reverse, you can see the start of her mental breakdown. It’s a great moment.

S4: Nicola’s last scene
Obviously, the sequence that stands out for me in this season is the series of character reactions to Cassie’s death. Cassie is in hospital after the hit-and-run car crash, while Sunny and DC Fran Lingley (Carolina Main) extract a murder confession from Andy Nyman’s character Dean Barton. Sunny then heads triumphantly to Cassie’s bedside to tell her they’ve cracked the case, but when he arrives in her corridor, a silent look from Al McKenzie’s character John Bentley, Cassie’s boyfriend, informs him that she is dead.

Sunny’s slow-mo exit from the hospital is highly emotionally charged, but then we cut to Cassie’s dad, played by the brilliant Peter Egan, sitting on a bench alone listening to a message that Cassie left on his phone earlier in the story, but which he hasn’t bothered playing, as they had been arguing about his will. As the message plays, we cut in flashback to Cassie sitting in her police car leaving this loving and conciliatory message.

It’s a lovely bit of visual grammar, one that only film can achieve. Cassie is dead, but in this scene it’s the last time we will ever see her alive. Peter Egan’s howl of grief hearing his dead daughter’s voice was so brilliantly performed. In the edit, I had to choke back my own tears over and over again. The emotions worked every time.

S5: Sanjeev & Jess bury their differences
In a scene towards the end of season five, following a series of tetchy confrontations, Sunny and Jess are in an interview room together. Sunny confesses that he is no longer able to work with Jess. He finds their relationship too difficult and wonders why she is so passive-aggressive in and around the team. He admits he has been distracted himself, that he has found it hard to handle his grief over Cassie’s death and that his personal life is also problematic. His girlfriend has left him after he had been less than enthusiastic about a pregnancy and not a little relieved when she miscarried. He apologises for his own failure to build a working relationship.

Jess decides to open up and tells Sunny about her own personal problems. She has discovered that her husband Steve has been having an affair with her sister. Sunny listens intently, then says, “OK, you win!” and they laugh together for the first time. I loved this scene. Sanjeev’s humanity is on full display, and his comedian’s instincts delivered this punchline with impeccable timing.

It’s the point at which the audience realises they will be able to work together going forward and perhaps where they accept, along with Sunny, that Jess has replaced Cassie. Sinead has replaced Nicola. It’s a moment of great heart in the show and made me hope for a new season to follow Sunny and Jess’s developing relationship.

S6: Steve finally gets his
Without spoilers, it’s hard to choose a favourite scene from season six. But I can reveal there is a terrific scene where Jess finally resolves her issues with her narcissist, sex addict husband. It’s the moment we’ve been waiting two seasons for, and Jess emerges victorious. Sinead’s performance is fantastic, as is Chris’s script. You’ll have to watch to see what I mean.

tagged in: Andy Wilson, ITV, Mainstreet Pictures, Masterpiece PBS, Unforgotten