Six of the Best: Paula Cuddy
The co-CEO and creative director of Rebus and Magpie Murders producer Eleventh Hour Films spotlights her screen hero, a crime drama from “the ultimate storyteller” and an endlessly quotable Royle comedy.
Prime Suspect
Created by a woman, inspired by a real policewoman and starring a woman. Ahead of the times and taking on the times, it starred the stellar Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison, ushering in a new era of iconic female police characters. Complex and flawed, juggling and battling, Tennison was my hero. From the moment she realises a male colleague has taken her case, she’s up for the fight, and I was backing her to win. Tennison’s home life was refreshingly complicated, and clearly her relationship was not going to go the distance as she was set to become ‘married to her job,’ smash the glass ceiling and be the boss. Writer Lynda La Plante knew what women really wanted.
The Royle Family
I was chuckling already based on the series title alone – and anything comedian Caroline Aherne was involved with, I was watching.
An ordinary working-class Manchester family on the sofa, a sitcom based around watching the goggle-box in the corner, real life, in real time. Revolutionary. There’s banter, bickering and love. Love is a free iced bun from the bakery, courtesy of mum Barbara. And when it’s all gone to shit, dad Jim will strum a ditty on the banjo, kicking any troubles ‘half the world away.’ Razor-sharp observational writing in a class of its own, a clever reinvention of Northern ‘kitchen sink’ for the Madchester era and instantly quotable. It was and remains pure comedy gold.
Cutting It
Cutting It was just what noughties Manchester needed. A gorgeous and glossy homegrown hit – sex, lies, revelations, feuds and family bust-ups, with a proper Mancunian voice at the helm. Writer Debbie Horsfield devised a neat premise: the rivalry between two hair salons on opposite sides of the street. Things turn personal and messy when Allie Henshall (Sarah Parish) discovers that the other salon is owned by her ex, Finn, and his wife. Glued to the final episode of season one, the Prosecco all gone, me and my mates were gobsmacked as Allie turned away from husband Gavin and walked back to her first love, Finn. Roll credits. And then we all started arguing about Finn vs Gavin. Brilliant.
Grey’s Anatomy
I didn’t think I could love another US medical drama as much as ER. But Shonda Rhimes and the Grey’s gang reeled me in, with surgical intern Meredith Grey at its heart (the excellent Ellen Pompeo) juggling the professional and the personal – the one-night stand with the guy who turns out to be the boss and the complicated ‘baggage’ with her mom. The show is whip-smart, compelling and makes you cry. As the pilot ends, Meredith visits her mum (a renowned former surgeon) and it’s revealed she has Alzheimer’s disease. It’s heart-wrenching. This show continually delivers. No wonder it’s the longest-running medical drama in US history.
Happy Valley
Sarah Lancashire owned the stage as Sergeant Catherine Cawood, blazing onto the screen armed with a fire extinguisher and speedily purchased sunglasses (“to preserve her eyebrows”) as she introduces herself to a local lad, who is “off his head,” threatening to set himself on fire in a kids’ playground. Within minutes, the stage and tone was set, and all through character and deft story execution. Writer Sally Wainwright gave us ‘specificity’ before it became an industry buzzword. This is her Yorkshire with all its beauty and grit, a story of family at its core, of innocents caught up in the mess, housed in a propulsive story engine that ensured the drama grips to the very end. She is the ultimate storyteller.
Industry
Set in the cutthroat world of finance, this series (also pictured top) is compulsive viewing, delivering big swings in character and story. Like all the best workplace dramas, it feels authentic, so it’s no surprise the writers were former investment bankers. It cleverly takes the classic setup of rookies but with its own spin, junior traders competing for a permanent position with the firm.
All the characters pop, but season three delivers a superlative dramatic crescendo for Yasmin (‘nepo baby’ to ‘driven survivor’) brilliantly acted by Marisa Abela. Caught up in the fallout from a family scandal, she gives up the man she loves to make a pragmatic alliance with another, so she can secure her future. A classic tale as old as time, but through the Industry lens it’s brutally modern. Bravo.
tagged in: Eleventh Hour Films, Paula Cuddy