London Pride
Jack Kibble-White on initiating the story in Holding On
First published July 2001
Whilst the modern novel has developed on mainly personal lines, the television mini-series has inherited many of the characteristics of the 19th century public novel, particularly its strong narrative and characters.
- Troy Kennedy Martin
Following 25 main characters amidst 94 speaking roles, across eight episodes of a drama serial set in one of the largest cities in the world sounds like a frighteningly complicated proposal, and one that would demand close attention from the viewer. Add to this a complicated taxation scam, a sexual harassment charge that goes nowhere beyond episode two, and the inclusion of a character with a tendency to address the audience directly, and you are likely to be left bewildered and struggling to piece together exactly what’s going on. How do you control so many moving parts, and how do you initiate a successful and complicated story such as this, whilst retaining the viewer’s interest?
“Michael Jackson, who was Controller of BBC2, was very keen to commission writer-led ‘signature’ drama because the feeling at the time was that Our Friends in the North was going to be extremely successful” says Producer David Snodin of Holding On‘s origins. “We were lucky in the timing because Holding On was eight hours of television and £5 million of licence-payers’ money.” Broadcast in the same week as the death of Princess Diana and the transmission of The Lakes, Holding On could have been easy to miss. Yet it represents perhaps the last great gasp of original British television drama (albeit slightly flawed).
Holding On is part of the tradition of “signature-piece” drama that has often produced television’s most affecting work. Kennedy-Martin’s Edge of Darkness is an obvious antecedent and Holding On – although recounting an entirely different story – bears many similar storytelling traits to both this programme and the acknowledged source texts of Kennedy Martin’s work: the gothic Victorian novels. Indeed Holding On‘s writer Tony Marchant confesses to having studied Our Mutual Friend and Bonfire of the Vanities to try and understand how to tell a story containing multiple plots, characters and ideas. Whereas Edge of Darkness (like other such renowned dramas as The Singing Detective) concentrates on the emotional development of one character, Holding On is wider in scope, attempting to tell an altogether more sprawling story (akin perhaps to Our Friends in the North which was first broadcast whilst Marchant was writing Holding On). In fact, if one were looking to invoke the name of some other TV dramas in connection with Holding On, you could do worse then mentioning Threads. Both dramas deal with the fundamental issue, that playwright John Guare refers to as the theory of “Six Degrees of Separation”. Marchant prefers to describe the same phenomenon in terms aligned with more modern thinking. “You could call it a kind of urban chaos theory” he begins “If something happens in one part of town, we as the audience can see it have some sort of effect on something else in another part of town. The people at the end of this story don’t realise they’re connected to each other but we as an audience can see that, yes, although they maybe never actually met or confronted each other fully, there was a kind of cause and effect thing linking them.”
So how to describe or explain what Holding On is actually about? At its heart it is a “qualified love letter” to London. There are a number of concurrent storylines unfolding throughout its eight episodes, each at some point (sometimes merely fleeting) intersecting with each other, yet all subservient to the overarching theme of the city as its own living, breathing “thing”. As journalist Claire Bickley points out “A lot of Marchant’s characters are on the very verge of losing it. ‘Desperately’ is unwritten but implied by the series’ title (which Marchant professes to having had foisted upon him) … [Such characters] include Sally, a young secretary being sexually harassed at work; Shaun, a tax inspector stricken by panic attacks; Gary, a bulimic restaurant reviewer; Florrie, a community activist in her public housing unit; and Alan, a schizophrenic whose killing of a stranger sets off the chain of events.” That this “stranger” is actually Sally, and that Alan – we eventually learn – is connected to Shaun, provides the binds between the disparate stories, and the underlying forward motion of the series’ narrative. Whilst the interconnections might sound trite when described in this manner (and there are more – such as the taxi driver who witnesses Sally’s murder subsequently killing Florrie’s son), Marchant is sufficiently crafted to subvert expectations and introduce arbitrary forces throughout to ensure that the underlying connections do not become too obvious. Sally’s story is typical of this intelligent plotting. Throughout the first episode, she is depicted as the prey of others – most noticeably her boss (who is revealed to be behind the acts of sexual harassment), and it is obvious to the viewer that at some point a terrible fate will befall her. After all it’s that kind of drama. However, her demise does not (as expected) come about as the culmination of her own story, rather she is subsumed into the wider tale that Holding On has set out to tell.
Like most who die by violent or tragic means, Sally’s identity is wiped away and she is simply reclassified as “victim”. Marchant wants us to understand that living within a society subjects us to laws and regulations and these in turn can lead to injustice. Sally dies because Alan is allowed to walk the streets. Alan is allowed to walk the streets because our society cannot accommodate his psychological problems. Holding On is brimming with examples of the inadequacies of society, and it is central to the journey that Shaun takes. He fervently believes that those who have wealth use the law to “insulate” themselves, whilst those who have nothing become victims of those same laws. As such his desire to bring to book those big businesses that seek to avoid paying taxes is his attempt to introduce some natural justice back into a world, which he believes provides parity only where there is sufficient wealth to afford it. This theme is revisited time and again throughout the series. During episode six, we will see security guard Lloyd attending the dinner party of his rather well to do girlfriend. Embarrassed by his lowly position, he lies about his work, informing the guests that he is a security consultant. “I suppose it’s the future really isn’t it” responds one of the guest, “Ivory Towers. Not so much being out of touch, but being untouchable”.
Over the course of the eight episodes, many of the characters within Holding On attempt to escape this unequal society. For Shaun it’s a trip to Switzerland, for Claire (the grieving sister of Sally) it’s continual talk of disappearing to Bali, and for others the only solution seems to be suicide. “We are not immune,” warns Marchant. “Society can only constitute itself through connections and people sharing the same goals. It’s an important lesson about how we can live together, I suppose. I’m completely against the idea that isolationism if it tries to exist, can.” The author is determined that his characters should learn that the only way to survive is to integrate. This is perhaps why many of the heightened moments of the drama are played out in the London Underground. Here once again we can detect a parallel with Edge of Darkness. Both dramas use the image of the tube to signify the unseen connecting paths within societies such as London.
But it is not just at the thematic level that Holding On excels. Marchant’s aptitude for storytelling draws you in too. In an early scene, Shaun’s weekly shopping expedition to the supermarket is disrupted when he and his wife encounter an old schoolmate. Played out in the backdrop of the car park at Tesco’s, Shaun’s obvious struggle to keep his past from resurfacing causes bemusement to his wife. That the actual “story” of Holding On is effectively activated within such a mundane backdrop adds to the realism and arbitrariness of the drama. The viewer instinctively knows that this scene is key to Holding On, but does not yet know why. The dramatic subterfuge of underplaying the moment merely confirms that in uncovering the truth that Shaun has buried, we will discover what Holding On is really to be about. We have a compelling reason to keep watching.
Marchant describes Shaun’s narrative as “the spine of the story: he is like the hunter who becomes hunted by his own private demons”. His attempts to unmask the financial deceptions of Hungarian business man Werner stand out from all the other ensuing stories as the only one that has an instant and obviously appreciable affect on others around him. That his struggle is largely unnoticed by others contributes to Shaun’s change in status from aggressor to prey. Even for us as viewers, the pursuit of Werner’s financial irregularities is incidental to the manner in which the chase is played out. We already know that Shaun is important to the drama, and we watch him because we believe he will lead us to the heart of the story. At times Marchant provides us with little confirmations that we are on the right track. For example, Shaun is the subject of the first major convergence of Holding On‘s disparate storylines (he is shown to be palpably affected by a newspaper report detailing Sally’s murder). That the scene should take place in the carriage of an underground train (echoing our first introduction to Sally and her eventual killer – Alan) forces us to make further connections between the three and to recognise the dramatic importance of the moment. Marchant ensures that we do not yet have any real “evidence” to tie these people together, but the mystery’s importance within the context of Holding On has been finely reasserted.
Structurally, Holding On is a two-part story, intersected at the end of the third episode. The first half of the story has to initiate the chain of events that invokes the drama. The final act in this process is also the drama’s best moment: the climax of Shaun’s investigation of Werner. Sensing that there is to be no escape from the Inland Revenue, Werner invites Shaun to an “off the record” meeting. Up to this point, Werner has been portrayed as the series’ ultimate nemesis. He is urbane and affluent and the type of prey that – if ensnared – will satisfy Shaun’s desire to wrest back some control of his world. This meeting assumes pivotal status within the story, laying to rest as it does Shaun’s belief that he can truly change anything – except himself.
Werner – a Hungarian Jew – describes himself as a “wog” and recounts to Shaun how, whilst attaining wealth and power he has never truly been accepted amongst the ruling class with whom he has spent so much time mixing. Werner’s vulnerability is further heightened by his disclosure that he lost his wife to leukaemia. It is perhaps at this point that Shaun comes to realise that bringing Werner to justice will have no real positive impact. The real targets for Shaun’s ire lie far beyond his reach. Marchant obviously does not want us to miss this moment, and as such prefaces Werner’s final statement with a literal illumination (Werner carefully patrols his study turning on each and every one of its many desk lamps): “Wealth can insulate you from many things, but it can never insulate you from the men who go to the right schools with the other men and who then marry the other men’s sisters”. It’s a disorientating, but liberating moment for Shaun to discover that his prey is no less wretched than he. At last he realises that he cannot make a difference, so might as well do as he pleases from now on. This is a successful result for Werner, who having convinced Shaun of his impotence, is then able to reassume absolute power. The moment in which he asks Shaun – seemingly out of the blue – why he changed his name is a stunning piece of television. Werner clearly knows more about this drama then we do. His ability to address the viewers’ most pressing question enforces his superiority to all of the other characters. He is high above them all, and the episode’s conclusion (with Werner looking down on London from his helicopter) serves only – once again – to give an important point a physical manifestation.
The second half of Holding On is now free to examine the repercussions and patterns of human behaviour that form as our characters attempt to deal with the situations they find themselves in. Although, it is arguable whether Marchant is able to fully satisfy the dramatic expectations he has set, any such failure in the latter half of the drama must be viewed in the context of the perilously high standards that Holding On has attained in the first few episodes. Certainly, as a whole, Holding On is not as complete a work as perhaps GBH, or Our Friends in the North, but this is largely accountable to the story that Marchant is trying to tell, which by necessity has to remain ragged and sprawling. So, whilst the ingenious storytelling techniques that ignite Holding On cannot then keep the drama ablaze for the entirety of its duration, there is enough about each of the episodes to ensure the viewer will wish to stay with the ride until the last stop.
