Crookhaven review

This new series, showing on BBC and on the iPlayer,  adapted by Justin Young based on books by JJ Arcanjo and aimed at a family audience initially comes across as something of a cross between Alex Ryder and MI High. Yet it proves to be somewhat more complicated than the former and less comedic than the latter, dialling up conspiracies and double crosses aplenty. Its been a while since there’s been a drama for any audience with quite so many plot twists and turns. Neither does the series linger on its mysteries, for the most part answering them in an episode or two before moving on. The results are a strangely addictive show that benefits from bingeing if only to keep track of where the tangled plot is heading.

 

By way of an interesting series of events hinting at the double takes and twists to come, Gabriel Avery is a young pickpocket (about sixteen in the series but apparently much younger in the books) whose street work has attracted the attention of the Crooked Network. This secret organisation trains promising crooks on how to best utilise their criminal skills to do right, sort of like an urban version of Robin Hood’s gang. It’s a solid gold idea that any author will be wishing they’d thought of!

Prospective candidates whose family has no previous connection with this underground art are recruited via cryptic clues to find the remote Crookhaven school. That name is a bit of a giveaway for a `secret` establishment. By the way the series  enjoys playing with nomenclature; here gymnastics is called Crimnastics ( I remember Mi High had the Crime Minister!). Gabriel’s arrival kicks off some of the usual school drama tropes but these have to take second place to the fiendishly designed plot. Viewers need to pay attention because the finger of suspicion points wildly and though I did guess some of the twists, others will surprise you. However much you try and pull these apart, they do all fit together with no anomalies I spotted. Perhaps the story’s literary origins mean it is more forensically assembled by a single author.

Ageing up the characters from the books does to some extent sidestep the potential issues of how morally correct a concept like this is considering it makes such behaviour look cool and exciting to younger viewers. The series is clear enough; the crooked code insists that it is only criminal means that are used to right wrongs but that does depend on each character’s perspective. Pleasingly the show does ask some of these questions within its narrative - in the first episode it’s clarified for a bunch of new pupils that there’s a difference between being `criminals` and being `crooks`.

One storyline in which a girl’s older brother appears to have been recruited by mysterious off camera villain The Leopard, is a thread that gifts several interesting developments as well as strained allegiances. Yet it also seems to be drawing real life parallels with the way radical groups recruit. Its this edge where the series can jump from juvenile jealousies to serious life issues that makes it worthwhile.

Some of the characters are a little on the nose at first- an arrogant school bully who appears to function because every school seems to need to have one, an undercover agent whose exaggeratedly timid demeanour is clearly hiding something. Yet something worthwhile comes from each character as the story unfolds. Though initially seeming just like the archetypal school House system, the division of pupils into Legacies (whose parents were here) and Merits (like Avery who sourced due to their talents) becomes an allegory for class difference and elitism.

Played with commitment and likeability by Lucas Leach, Avery is driven by the mystery of his upbringings; his parents supposedly abandoned him and he’s been brought up by his gran. It’s a plot line that delivers generously; spinning off in all sorts of crazy directions. Then there’s Carmel Laniado who gives a superbly calibrated performance as Headmaster’s daughter Penelope, whom viewers will like and then hate and then back again often in the course of an episode! For some reason- maybe because of the younger age of these characters in the books- the potential romantic connection between Gabriel and Penelope- which the actors play into- is not allowed to enter the plot which is a shame because it would be the topping on the trifle.

As the head teacher Dougray Scott marshals his considerable experience to play the wonderfully named Caspian Lockett as a secretive, outwardly reasonable but inwardly scheming character. You genuinely do not know whose side he is on till near the very end but like a lot of the plotline you’ll enjoy trying to guess. Comic relief is provided by the twins Ade and Edo (Amari Bacchus and Sani Thabo) hackers and bantering bros while Leila Khan as Amira is another key character, her storyline is probably the most challenging and the one that most echoes real life issues. Julia Hesmondhalgh and Keith Allen are on hand to give acting masterclasses as Avery’s no nonsense Gran and the school’s wryly observant security chief plus gardener. Amusingly all the security guards dress as gardeners too!

The pupil’s skills are tested by a series of challenges; an alarm strewn ascent of a tower and a no holds barred series of Trials amongst these though there is more intrigue in the back stories. While the show’s violence never gets too graphic, and is often implied or deftly edited, strong direction from Jon East and Jamie Magnus Stone (half the episodes each) ensure the story never gets too bogged down and there are some excellent action scenes.

Apart from a stand out sequence in an office block, much of the action utilises the large country house and grounds (Clandyboye Estate in County Down in Northern Ireland) in which the school is based. This provides plenty of interesting locales including an old ice house, the tower, secret passages galore and a labyrinthine basement. There's also a sort of mirror labyrinth, which most of us definitely didn't have in our schools! The school’s heritage enables odd traditions aplenty notably a masquerade at the end of term in which the symbolism of the masks provides more clues and of course plenty of misdirection. All this is catnip for the directors who embrace what could be over familiar material with a fresh feel.

I’ve not read the books but there are times when the series does seem to be more about spies than crooks though some might say they are indistinguishable anyway. The plot leans heavily on events that have happened in the past which provides a rich buffet of revelations and trickery. If there is a second season, perhaps it can build up new issues as I would say all the secrets of the past are out there now. Oh and watch out for two supporting characters who drift in and out of the action surreptitiously so you hardly notice…

Crookhaven is probably the closest the BBC has come for a while to a show like the mid Noughties Doctor Who revival, a show rooted in a particular genre but with wider demographic appeal and the aim of telling a rivetingly good tale.