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Originally conceived as a replacement for ITV's (temporarily) retiring
Inspector Morse (1987-1993), Cracker turned out to be the antithesis of its
forerunner: brash, urgent and fiercely contemporary where Morse was genteel,
sedate and nostalgic. Developed from an idea by producer Gub Neal for a 'totally
new-age detective', Cracker's hero, Fitz, was not a policeman but a forensic
psychologist - a breed previously unseen on British television. But if Neal
provided the concept, the character was very much the creation of writer Jimmy
McGovern.
McGovern fashioned Fitz from the darkest elements of his own character:
angry, confrontational and self-destructive (a harddrinking chainsmoker and a
chronic gambler), not to mention arrogant and manipulative. But Fitz was also
compassionate, breathtakingly smart and sharply witty, and in the hands of
Robbie Coltrane he became one of 90s television's most compelling heroes. Where
traditional crime stories concerned themselves with unmasking the criminal,
Cracker went deeper, exploring moral choices and concealed motives in a way that
reflected Fitz's (and McGovern's) Catholic past, and examining the consequences
of crime for both perpetrator and victim with rare determination.
Fitz's outsider status, meanwhile, allowed for a fresh perspective on modern
policing at a time when a series of miscarriages of justice had seriously dented
public confidence in the force. His police associates - the talented but
undervalued DS Jane Penhaligon (with whom Fitz embarks on an ill-starred
affair), the inexperienced, inconsistent DCI Bilborough and the brutal,
prejudiced DS Jimmy Beck - highlighted policing at its best and worst, and
represented a beleaguered, sometimes cynical police force for which the pursuit
of truth frequently took a back seat to satisfying media and public demand for a
'result'.
But McGovern's most furious writing was fuelled by what he considered the
most heinous of recent injustices, the death of 96 Liverpool football supporters
in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium tragedy. Through the vengeful Albie
(memorably played by rising star Robert Carlyle) in 'To Be a Somebody', McGovern
enacted a kind of dramatic restorative justice for the Hillsborough dead,
culminating in the violent deaths of the flawed Bilborough and a mercenary Sun
reporter.
After two series, McGovern was succeeded as writer by Paul Abbott, who played
down the Catholicism in favour of a focus on dysfunctional family relationships
(including Fitz's) partly inspired by his own troubled upbringing. After a
disappointing Hong Kong-set special, Fitz was mothballed, but re-emerged in 2006
for a McGovern-penned one-off, with mixed results.
Mark Duguid
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1. The great British public (2:18)
