Brighton Rocked

With BBC1 drowning in identikit medical and dreary period dramas, it’s been great that they’ve actually made a series which reminds you why the license fee is occasionally a good thing. The whole singing thing was initially off-putting, but the fantastic characterisation and acting made the series compelling and by episode two, you’d didn’t even blink when the cast burst into spontaneous song. Billed as a musical murder mystery, Blackpool was nothing of the sort. Sure, there was a murder – but no one really cared who did. In fact, no one really cared who it was who’d actually been killed. And the music was only really there as a gimmick, albeit one brilliantly done. No, Blackpool was really about a family in crisis. As maverick businessman dad Ripley was headed towards bankruptcy, his marriage collapsed and the distance between him and his kids widened. Wife Natalie fell into the arms of the detective investigating the murder, daughter Shyanne wed Ripley’s childhood enemy Steve, and son David trawled the resort clobbering men with bricks, or alternatively, shagging them. The fact that there was such a feel-good ending, complete with Communard-tuned wedding, is a credit to the writing, while the central cast were superb. Sarah Parrish is surely the best actress on television at the moment; she has a talent for making your heart break as hers does. It’s just a shame that there was nothing really left open for a second series…