Dark Money

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

SERIES ONE

Manny (Babou Ceesay) and Sam (Jill Halfpenny) welcome their teenage son, Isaac (Max Fincham) back from the States, where he has just had a major role in a big budget sci-fi thriller. However, his success has come at a terrible price, when he produces mobile phone footage, that contains an audio recording of him being sexually abused by one of the film's producers. Facing insurmountable obstacles suing a rich, powerful man in the States, they accept some hush money, a decision which sends them spiralling down into a destructive cycle of despair and retribution.

The BBC, in recent years, has become a hotbed for former stars from years back becoming the subject of sexual abuse scandals, in the wake of the revelations about Jimmy Savile. But, as if by some terrible coincidence, now Hollywood, the dominant film industry over the pond, has started to produce its own checklist of high profile sexual abusers. Dark Money serves, in some definition, as a perverse amalgamation of these two dark worlds, in an effective drama that gets beneath the skin.

Strong performances all round guide the weighty material along, in a pretty 'woke' cast, the most admiration of which has to go to the young Fincham, as the violated young man, whose mistreatment results in him transforming into an aggressive, not always likeable young bloke, who still manages to endear us to him in the end. But powerful, sturdy support from Ceesay and Halfpenny as the devastated mixed race parents is an essential part of what makes the whole thing flow like clockwork.

Here, reflecting their own modern turmoil, the beeb have produced an ambitious, searing, unconventional, but highly rewarding piece of work. ****

I imagine this is based on a true story.

This drama is short (4 episodes and not 12 or something as many US ones are) - it deals with the issues without padding it out another 2/4 episodes of nothing.

I am slightly confused by this being a BBC Drama and yet has opening credit for Chanel 4 - but no matter. Good script good acting and the story continues apace.

Well done all.

I know this is a film series about an extremely painful subject, but the BBC still seem to think that slow and 'poignant ' silences will fill the lack of good dialogue... We're up to episode two, so two to go, but this is disappointing so far...

It is right that the victims of injustice should be compensated; but where the perpetrator has a reputation to protect, compensation may be conditional on silence. That's a strange sort of justice, in which acknowledgement and apology of the crime is explicitly ruled out (and indeed, this ruling out is what is being paid for). 'Dark Money' tells the story of a family who take big money after their child (an actor) is abused by a film producer; it seems to be the best option but living in its aftermath is not easy. Unfortunately, the series feels rather obvious and wooden the whole way through; the decision to take the money shown as wrong but understandable, and the child and his parents presented as purely innocent victims (which may often be exactly how it is, but it makes for less interesting fiction than where complicity is involved). The recent documentary about Michael Jackson, 'Finding Neverland' told a much more intriguing (and terrifying) true story than the one that has been made up here.

A cop out. They had no choice at the start but they don't say that at the end.