The Blame review: Michelle Keegan shines in a plodding cop drama with an important message
ITV's new drama series The Blame (ITV, Sat/Sun, 9pm) arrives at a time when several high-profile cases have revealed some unpalatable truths about the police, and particularly the macho culture shared by officers.
The murder of Sarah Everard by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens raised questions about the type of man allowed to join the force, while only 10 days ago, an officer with Cambridge Constabulary was jailed for requesting sexually explicit videos from a female suspect's phone.
In that case, the court was told Paul Street, 41, a former police sergeant, “encouraged a toxic WhatsApp culture within his team... using inflammatory language”.
You don't have to Google too far to find numerous other cases, of behaviour dismissed as lads' banter for too long, of too many blind eyes turned, of not enough people standing up to be counted.
Which makes The Blame a drama which has been a long time coming, with points to be made which have yet to be shown in a prime-time show.
That it makes these points within a conventional police drama is both a strength and a weakness, however.
Michelle Keegan plays DI Emma Crane, partnered with DI Tom Radley (Douglas Booth), a man who – on first impression at least – is as square as his jawline.
These two look impossibly glamorous compared to the other lumpen and badly-dressed members of the team at the fictitious Wakestead Police Station, where they are tasked to investigate the murder of teenage ice skater Sophie Madsen (Matilda Freeman).
They soon gather evidence against her ice skating coach Kyle Frasier, while a missing video card reveals some members of the force are less than squeaky-clean when it comes to dealing with victims of sexual assault.
All of this occurs against a background of a toxic male culture, with the boss, DCI Walker (Ian Hart) sharing WhatsApp messages with the male members of the team, provoking sniggers and sideways glances.
It's at its best when centring Keegan, who does a good job capturing Emma's world-weariness at the male-dominated culture within which she works, which sparks into anger when she learns of Sophie's treatment at the hands of her fellow officers.
“Does it bother you the way the guys sometimes talk?” she asks Radley. “Because all these little comments, they're all right on their own, but they add up to an attitude that affects behaviour.”
She's a firebrand, which makes it slightly perplexing when Radley professes he cares more about his career than equal rights in the workplace, which immediately leads to a rain-sodden bunk-up in an alleyway.
But when The Blame returns to the police investigation, it becomes much more leaden affair, flatly-shot and – Keegan apart – performed dully.
Armstrong makes his ice-skating coach an appalling creature, unconcerned with abuse of power or 30-year age gaps, which makes his arrest an obvious red herring, while the male cops are either slobby old misogynists or much too good to be true.
Meanwhile, Line of Duty's notorious Buckells (Nigel Boyle) turns up as a forensic scientist in big glasses and tight curls, looking every inch like The Fast Show's Colin Hunt, the ‘you don’t have to be mad here, but it helps’ office prankster.
The Blame has important, urgent things to say, and at time you get the anger bubbling under the surface. Michelle Keegan is great in the main role, but you feel like the message gets lost in the background of a banal murder mystery.
There are other dramas which make similar points, and do it better – Netflix's Unbelievable is a stand-out case in point – but The Blame is one of the first on a main terrestrial channel in the UK, and as such deserves plaudits for starting a long-overdue conversation.