#wolcott

Wolcott :: Guests

* * * *

"In pure love, receptivity reigns. Let your will go and just be with all things."  

I’ve wanted to see Wolcott for a while and here it is!

Starring George Harris (probably best known for playing Kingsley Shacklebolt in the Harry Potter franchise), this 1981 miniseries was the first UK TV drama with a black lead. Intended as a pilot for a 13-part series, Wolcott was never renewed as Central TV thought the premise of the show (black cop confronts racism deeply entrenched in the force) too much of a political hot potato after the Brixton, Dalston and Toxteth riots that took place within a few months of the show airing. A skeleton in ITV’s closet, Wolcott was never repeated and was only released on DVD a few years ago.

George Harris gives an intense performance as Wolcott, a very nuanced delivery of a flawed, complex lead. Who else is in it? There are some interesting cameos. A very young Rik Mayall plays a racist policeman, Alexei Sayle plays a hawker of a Socialist Worker type paper and Keith Allen plays a National Front thug. In the supporting roles, Hugh Quarshie is memorable as Wolcott’s childhood friend, now a youth worker who pricks his conscience about how the police treat the local kids. Warren Clarke and Chris Ellison both chew the scenery as an old school East End gang boss and a bent copper. In many ways it’s a very brash, sensationalist, pulpy show. The dialogue has dated very badly in places and it’s never going to pass the Bechdel test. The violence and frequent racial slurs would never be allowed on TV today, but at the same time Wolcott is very ahead of its time, with morally ambiguous characters on both sides of the law and in black and white communities. The language is hard to take at times but the show takes a hard and unflinching look at institutional racism that modern TV usually shies away from.