The Play on One (TV Series) Yellowbacks (1990) User Reviews

well-acted, hard-hitting drama

[ignazia · 9/10 · 9 April 2002]

I saw this on TV back in 1990 so my memory of details is hazy.

I remember it as a hard-hitting drama on the "underground" metropolitan police force (in London, UK) - much in the tone of the 1997 US movie "Conspiracy Theory". The title word refers to authoritarian automobiles that are painted canary yellow due to a clerical mistake of a bulk order of paint that needed to be used up.

Sorry, can't remember much more except the wonderful scene where the character played by Janet McTeer is forced to quaff vast quantities of alcohol (in order that her subsequent behaviour might discredit her disclosure of discoveries) by the character played by Imelda Staunton and Janet's acting as she gets "drunker" is just great. Highly recommended.

A thought provoking and at times violent film

[virgovision · 9/10 · 27 December 2005]

The film centres around a slightly futuristic U.K. in which people who have a medical condition (never actually called AIDS/HIV but heavily hinted at) are put in isolation camps in Wales and the North east of England. Some friends of those with the condition and some medical practitioners who have been treating them have helped patients to escape the collection squads and are now being interrogated at an isolated country house. Tim Roth plays a very sadistic enforcement(secret police ?) officer who tries to bully and torture Janet McTeer into a confession. Roy Marsden is a much more conventional cop who tries the "It has to be done for the sake of the majority" line with Bill Patersons character. It is one of those films that makes you glad people will still help others no matter what the personal dangers, and sad that society would consider the sort of action taken by the authorities.