Yesterday evening saw the return of Hustle, written by Eastenders-cliché-machine Tony Jordan who, despite my mockery, actually doesn’t do too badly from time to time. The show, now in it’s sixth series, wasted no time in settling back into it’s usual display of surreal situations, brilliant acting-in-acting, plot twists and a setting apparentely so small they seem to always be able to pop off to have a contemplative stare into the Thames (pseudo-deep pricks), but no bizarre use of “bullet-time” in this episode; which I’m slightly disappointed about.
I’ve been a fan of Hustle from, literally, the very beginning and was immediately enthralled as the show grabbed me by the vernacticules for the entire first and second series. I never managed to anticipate what seemingly irrelevant movement or action would be the thing that saved the team from (as Ash says in this episode, “it’s all about misdirection”)
It’s beautifully acted, Robert Vaughn as Albert is hollywood royalty playing hollywood royalty playing anything else. Like all the performers, Vaughn has to switch between several different personas, usually in the same episode. For example, last night he was playing the good-old wise, kind yet powerful Albert everyone loves, switching to Albert playing a man with his nose so far up his arse he could smell his own earwax, switching to Albert-mentor, to Albert playing a soft-spoken art professor, to Albert playing a bumbling gold expert (I’m borrowing from other episodes now but you get the idea). Adrian Lester, too, as Mickey, had to alternate between American-throated businessman and Londoner(ish)-voiced bruiser several times, which was superb on his part. Stellar performance, as we always expect, from Robert Glenister as Ash and Kelly Adams as Emma, topped off with a passable performance by Eastenders-baby Matt Di Angelo as Sean. No matter how many prepubescent stubble-beards you grow, Matt, you’ll still be Deano Wicks and look about twelve. That aside, it’d be perfect if they weren’t given such wooden and stale lines from writer Tony Jordan, a man who clearly doesn’t get enough misery at home so decides to chuck it in front of every television in the country on Eastenders. Besides Hustle and Eastenders, one of Jordan’s best known works is Life on Mars, starring Philip Glenister (whose brother plays Ash in Hustle, Jordan likes his Glenisters and, frankly, who can blame him), showing how Jordan has just enough imagination to write a intensely intruiging concept and generally follow through with action and ideas but fails piteously with dialogue and evidentely runs out of ideas pretty fast so reuses old formats, like so…
It’s getting a tad repetitive, at least once a series there seems to be someone trying to catch the team who has, apparentely, outwitted the best grifters in London. They have some sort of informal meet with Mickey, wherein they smile smugly and bask in their deluded confidence, there’s another Thames-adjacent discussion with Albert when the supposed Grifter-Yoda warns Mickey not to do anything, knowing that Mickey will be spurred on by his pride. Mickey will have a sudden burst of inspiration, grin inanely at the camera for a second, then wipe-cut to the team gathered in a hotel room, where Mickey says something unexpected. The con apparentely continues precisely as expected, on the teams part, often interspliced with some apparent scheming of this year’s newcomer-conman-catcher. Something will go wrong and you think the team have lost the money, or the mark, or (more often) their very liberty, before Mickey makes a big reveal of something that happened off-camera to demonstrate that they’ve got the money and tied up all the loose ends. Job Done.
In case you didn’t see it, that’s basically how last night’s episode played out.
The dialogue is so bland and ineffectual that I genuinely believe that in episodes of this format, you could watch the episode entirely on mute, turn the sound back on for the last five minutes and gain a palpable comprehension of what’s happened and how it was resolved.
When they aren’t doing this tired format, however, there are some generally original ideas for cons. Perhaps my favourite episode showed the team convincing a London newsrag that they have found the Queen Mother’s long-lost son, with a genuinely tense episode and one of the best plot twists of the show. Alas, that may’ve been one of the last times that the show has genuinely suprised me. Tony Jordan is clearly more of an ideas man, shame he decides to make them talk as well…
It’s also losing it’s signature characteristics that made it such a hit originally – there’s the bullet-time stuff that I’ve already mentioned, that recognisable theme tune from the first four series, breaking the fourth wall and bollocks-on-the-table surrealism. In the second episode of the first series, Mickey and Danny convinced the mark to part with his hard-swindled cash with a dance number, obviously it was meant to be symbolic of how they dazzled the mark and was undoubtedly more interesting than any dialogue that Jordan had prepared from his post-it note line bible, but the level of genius from early episodes is unmatched these days. If the second episode doesn’t involve naked hula-hoops and woodland creatures playing Scrabble in space, I’m switching off. I kid, of course, because shows have to change and develop, look at Doctor Who, but in the old days the weekly mindfuck of the episode would make up, indeed disguise, the terrible conversational writings of Tony Jordan – now it’s unashamedly obvious.
The problem is that, over the years, the plot twists have become more and more predictable; at least they have to me. Over the years I’ve watched episodes with a beady eye and thought to myself “that’s the hint at the ending” and, more often that not in the last two series, I’ve been correct, I even half-guessed last night’s twist. BUT when I spoke to someone else about this, someone who had only just started watching it, he disagreed with me. So, I’m more attentive or I’m obsessive enough to have watched the show long enough to spot an unusual camera shot, either I’m getting smarter or the show’s getting more predictable (I’m torn here between my own arrogance and my poignant skill at self-deprecation so I’ll leave you to make up your own joke there). The shows technical “re-boot” last year started on a high, admitedly, and did take me by suprise, but (lately) seldom does Tony Jordan manage a consistent run of genuine twists; Agatha Christie he ain’t.
Ok, it seems odd to criticise a show that I love so much, both now and before, and long may it remain on our screens. Pains me to say it, but I actually think that Tony Jordan makes the show, metaphorically as well as literally, to the extent that no plot twist would be quite so delicious in the hands of someone else, nor the ideas quite so ludicrously brilliant, it’s a fantastic show and I hope it keeps getting made. Shame the all-dialogue scenes are just like Twitter – you know they’re there and that they’re talking, but you can anticipate the point of it and you really just….don’t…..care.
LONG LIVE HUSTLE!