STEPHEN Nolan's in the spotlight again (I know, Virginia, I know – you’d need a flame-thrower to keep him out of it). He's just announced to much Ormeau Avenue fanfare the second series of Peelers.
Nolan gets attention in various ways but mainly by adopting a tabloid approach – big booming signature tune, ferreting out instances of grief and injustice and outrage, and amplifying them by ten. In recent days he’s been touting his TV documentary Peelers, and asking people on-air what they think of it. I haven’t heard anyone yet give a response that wasn’t full-throated praise. This praise may well be sincere, t also could be the response you inevitably get if you ask “Does my bum look big in this?”
Does Peelers deserve this unanimous praise? I don’t know for sure, since I’ve watched only the first part; maybe what is yet to come will be totally different. But what I’ve seen is a documentary from the Nolan stable: over the top, repetitious and deeply sentimental. Which is fine, if your tastes bend that way. But I rate it a wasted opportunity. The policing service in this stateen is vital; given the history of policing here, it’s more than important to show that a clean break has been made with the past. Not much sign of that in Peelers.
The part I’ve seen shows Nolan in two PSNI encounters with the public.
In the first case police are summoned to a house where a man has allegedly thrown some bleach into the face of another man. The PSNI rush to the spot, Stephen sits in the back of the car in light-coloured clothing so the camera can pick him out.
It seems there’s not just bleach in this house, headquarters have radioed that there are a number of weapons as well. After a longish bit of shouting and swearing and jolting camerawork, the alleged bleacher is handcuffed and taken away.
Stephen is in awe, and he tells the officers as much. Having heard that there are weapons in the house, they still run to enter and put handcuffs on the bleach-throwing suspect. Nolan is amazed at their ‘bravery’, because his instinct was to run away from the scene of the crime, not towards it.
The second crisis in the part I viewed involved an alleged sex offender who foolishly has come back to a house he was banned from. This leads to an incensed mini-mob, who eff and blind at the alleged sex offender, but also at Nolan.
What do we learn? That when people gather together in indignation, they compete with each other as to who can roar the most effs and bees and cees. The crowd directs this abuse at the offender, and also at Stephen. Besides which, there are those who don’t give a damn about the matter in hand. They would eat their entire family raw if that increased their chances of being seen on the telly.
Raw emotion garnished with the threat of violence and much shouted abuse are the defining characteristics of this part of the documentary. Yes, Nolan can be partially excused: tabloid is what he does. But we need more attention to wider issues, like how and why the PSNI came into existence, its plan to have 50-50 recruiting, its ambition to be a police service as distinct from a police force.
But tabloid TV doesn’t work that way. Instead the viewer is invited to strip off and jump into a hot tub of emotion with Stephen.
Still, Part 2 may deliver, but I doubt it. Stephen Nolan wasn’t built for that kind of thing.
