Television
Twenty-four-hour party people
Published 05 February 2007
These young, horny, coke-snorting politicians seem fresh and real
Party Animals BBC2
I've had a soft spot for conspiracy theorists ever since we read Julius Caesar at school. There's not much room for cock-up/lone gunman theories in that assassination. So I'd better level with conspiracy-minded readers of the NS. Yes, it is true that years ago, when it was first mooted, the editor of this magazine was a consultant on Party Animals (Wednesdays, 9pm), a soap opera set in the intestines of Westminster. Yes, my colleague Martin Bright is down in the credits as its "research consultant". Yes, he glowingly previewed it on these pages two weeks ago. Yes, the NS's arts editor suggested I might like to review it. And, yes, sorry, I loved it.
Yet there is no conspiracy - merely the firm hand and wobbly camera of Tony Garnett's company World Productions. When it is on form, as it was with The Cops and before that with This Life (although not in its revival the other week), World makes television dramas that possess the unusual quality of looking less like television dramas than real life. True, the focus on a group of young, horny, ambitious, coke-snorting professionals is reminiscent of This Life, as is the title music. True, there are nods to The West Wing: conversations frequently take place during walks down corridors; episode one even half-heartedly employed the old WW device of the "18 hours earlier" caption. Yet Party Animals still looked fresh and real.
There will, doubtless, be talk about the effect it has on Westminster's reputation. The sea in which these young politicians swim is rough and the air they breathe poisonous. If there is a culture of bullying in the real Treasury, so there is in this fictional Parliamentary Labour Party, where the chief whip, Roger, has a voice and face like John Reid's and a temper to match. When he bawls out a junior minister, Jo Porter, for screwing up the announcement of a "good behaviour bond", she in turn bullies her researcher Danny Foster, who has inadvertently tipped off the opposition about its details. When Danny has the guts to own up, Roger promises that he will never work again.
Life is more suave, but not much nicer, in the Tory camp, where the smoothie rising star James Northcote, Jo's shadow, is having an affair with his researcher Ashika Chandiramani. He puts the breaks on only after a dressing down about his wandering eye from his chief whip. James, played by Patrick Baladi, is a proper Cameron Conservative: in the words of one journalist, he employs "an ethie and a shirtlifter" in his private office.
But at the heart of the show is Danny, cynical about people but idealistic enough to think they can be changed through politics. Brought up by socialists who had ANC leaders to tea, he believes that the youth bonds are not a gimmick but the right thing to do. "Even if it means one kid goes to college rather than to Feltham it is worth it," he exclaims. Jo, his dragon-like minister, agrees, telling him that his incompetence has jeopardised getting on to the agenda "a decent and progressive policy". It is harder to find saving graces among the Tories (as it was among the Republicans in The West Wing), but they too look more principled than the amoral, in-it-for-the-bucks lobbyists represented by Danny's brother Scott, who spends his nights out "caning" it at clubs while his little brother brushes up on young offender stats.
Although it ended shockingly with a death, the first episode (31 January) did not exactly distinguish itself with its plot. There may well be recorded cases of researchers leaving their boss's files in pub loos where they are picked up by the other side, but it is a weak and random twist. A Tory MP with a mistress is hardly breakthrough plotting, either. The characters, however, are ace. Matt Smith as Danny is Harry Potter crossed with Jarvis Cocker, which is to say he looks like a nerd but an interesting one. As his brother, Andrew Buchan lets us know that beneath Scott's confidence lies a lost soul who envies Danny's commitment. Party Animals is not disgusted by the next generation of politicos, but finds it perversely glamorous. It is more the shabby chic of it than The Thick of It.
Andrew Billen is a staff writer for the Times
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