When a day of madness sees a community implode

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

The title might conjure up images of yet another maverick detective – and Southcliffe certainly has murder at its core. But these killings are no mystery and this drama has no happy ending.

It’s the latest four-part drama from Channel 4 – taking over the mantle that cuts forced BBC to put down – and it is mesmerising in its imaginative take on a killing spree as well as in its setting.

The first two episodes were shown last Sunday and Monday week, another one last weekend, and the final one goes out next Sunday night – but that’s where 4OD comes in handy if you’ve missed it, because it’s well worth the effort.

In a nutshell, Southcliffe tells the story of a fictional English coastal market town devastated by a spate of shootings which take place over a single day; a tragedy that rips apart the entire community.

But that doesn’t really explain why it’s so damn good – for one thing you know who the killer is, almost from the first shot (gun and video) and by the end of the first episode, you also know what prompted him.

But the story goes back and forward in time, jumping from snatches of the day of horror back to the victim’s story or offering a glimpse into the family background.

Southcliffe is a typical sleepy village where life goes on very much as you’d expect it to – but then one man’s meltdown turns this into another Dunblane or Hungerford that shatters that boring normality forever.

The killer is Stephen Morton, an odd-ball and a loner who was once a soldier but didn’t make the SAS and now lives in a world of delusion, caring for his dying mother, feeding her on a thrice-daily diet of fried egg on toast.

He meets up with Chris Cooper, a traumatised soldier returning home from Afghanistan to his family, but with a secret addiction to prescription drugs to help him deal with his pain.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.