Before Hagrid made him cuddly and big-luggy, Robbie Coltrane clumped across the TV screen as hard-drinking/smoking/everythinging police shrink Fitz. Laughably, the US remake de-toxed the character, neutering writer Jimmy McGovern’s dramatic point: here’s a man who can pick his way into the most psychotic of psyches, but forever shirks a wrestle with his own, plentiful demons.
The muscular performances are all powered by McGovern’s ferocious swipes of dialogue/social comment, the highlight being To Be A Somebody, featuring Robert Carlyle as a Liverpool fan on a grief-blinded Hillsborough revenge mission. Avert your eyes, though, for 1996’s limp White Ghost and so-so comeback Nine Eleven (sold separately) – a clear case of Robbie’s agent insisting he works with grown-ups again.
