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The Gallows Pole is a new Shane Meadows drama which sets the scene with the following text:
- “In the early 1760s, the thriving Calder Valley in the West Yorkshire, produced some of the finest cottage spun textiles in the world. But as the decade wore on, its fortunes began to sharply decline.
For manpower was about to be replaced by that of fire and steam. Lanes and rivers by roll roads and canals. Weavers cottages by behemothic factories. Laying waste to a feudal system that had existed for centuries.”
It’s a time when you had to work ‘ard for a living, just so you could afford a carboard box to live in, in t’middle of t’road… Luxury!
David Hartley (Michael Socha) has been away, working in Birmingham for seven years, having walked all the way there and back. Then again, there’s been rail strikes…
So, it’s not a surprise that he returns rather knackered. The billing states the area has declined in that time, but then lack of government funding isn’t a surprise in any era. However, unlike the Tories, he plans to revitalise the community and improve things.
Alas, for The Gallows Pole, this is so incredibly drawn out, to the point that when there’s a scene of two people sat down and talking to each other, it feels like an Amateur Dramatics play that’s sold about five tickets with most of the audience walking out as it goes on, rather than a primetime drama.
Ralph Ineson also appears in voice form as ‘The Clothier’, trying to sound all creepy, but since I know what he sounds like, I just hear Ralph Ineson. The same happened with the mediocre The Pope’s Exorcist, when he played the voice of the Devil.
Bizarrely, however, the end credits feature some 1970’s-style funky music over the credits. I had to have drunk even a half-pint of what Shane Meadows had been on that day. I would recommend giving this a miss, and watching Socha in the brilliant Double Date, instead.
The Gallows Pole begins tomorrow on BBC2 at 9pm, and I expect after that, the whole series will be on the BBC iPlayer.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but you can buy the novel in Paperback and Kindle.
Director: Shane Meadows
Producer: Nickie Sault
Screenplay: Shane Meadows
Novel: Benjamin Myers
Cast:
David Hartley: Michael Socha
Isaac Hartley: Samuel Edward-Cook
Susie: Nicole Barber-Lane
Stagman: Jordan Preston
Voice of the Stagman: Seigfried Moorland
The Clothier: Ralph Ineson
Grace Hartley: Sophie McShera
Darya Hartley: Soraya Jane Nabipour
William Hartley: Thomas Turgoose
Abe Oldfield: Anthony Welsh
James Broadbent: Adam Fogerty
Joseph Broadbent: Fine Time Fontayne
Bethsheba: Yusra Warsama
Tom Hartley: Dave Perkins
Sid the Snake: Rob Galloway
Rose: Sharondeep Kaur Johal
Mand: Stevie Binns
Rita: Emma Chadbourne
Joe the pickpocket: Joe Sproulle
Billy Vardy: Stuart Zubrzycki
Jacob Oldfield: Tai Mukome
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.