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| The Missing review – hauntingly brilliant television | The Missing review – hauntingly brilliant television |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| “Ours are never going swimming again,” says my missus. “Or to watch football, or to France, or out of the house. Or my sight.” Oh, dear. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to watch The Missing (BBC1). But it is testament to the power of brothers Harry and Jack Williams’s drama, about the disappearance of five-year-old Oliver from a family holiday in France. | “Ours are never going swimming again,” says my missus. “Or to watch football, or to France, or out of the house. Or my sight.” Oh, dear. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to watch The Missing (BBC1). But it is testament to the power of brothers Harry and Jack Williams’s drama, about the disappearance of five-year-old Oliver from a family holiday in France. |
| It’s hard not to think about the McCanns. And then - guiltily - about other children who have gone missing less publicly. Mostly though, certainly for anyone with children, it’s hard - impossible - not to imagine it happening to you. | It’s hard not to think about the McCanns. And then - guiltily - about other children who have gone missing less publicly. Mostly though, certainly for anyone with children, it’s hard - impossible - not to imagine it happening to you. |
| There are several unbearable moments in The Missing. A sighting of Oliver that turns out not to be him but another little boy. His mother Emily (Frances O’Connor) waking up from the anaesthesia of sleep, and it suddenly hitting, the realisation that it wasn’t just a terrible dream, that her only son has gone. | There are several unbearable moments in The Missing. A sighting of Oliver that turns out not to be him but another little boy. His mother Emily (Frances O’Connor) waking up from the anaesthesia of sleep, and it suddenly hitting, the realisation that it wasn’t just a terrible dream, that her only son has gone. |
| The one that got me, though, is that first moment when it sinks in. Olly and dad Tony (James Nesbitt) have had their swim and have gone to the bar to get a drink, a bar that is full of people watching France playing Brazil in the World Cup quarter-final (the real event, Ronaldo on the screen, which adds an element of authenticity). Suddenly Oliver’s not there, and Tony’s running around, everywhere, directionless, shouting his name. And there’s that feeling, a quicker heartbeat, nausea, sickness and a tightening in the pit of the stomach, that every parent has felt when they’ve lost a child. For most of us, it’s only a few moments, before the little bugger turns up in the biscuits aisle or wherever. Not for the Hughes family, though. Tony’s cries of “Olly” become more and more desperate, and lost among the jubilation of a nation celebrating great sporting triumph. | |
| Then there’s another noise, a crescendo-ing electronic high-pitched discordant screech, taking over the soundtrack and drowning out Tony and the jubilant street. What is it? It’s the noise inside Tony’s head, the sound of a father’s realisation he has lost his son, the sound of the greatest pain. (And Nesbitt is so very very good at pain; he doesn’t just share it, he forces it on you.) | Then there’s another noise, a crescendo-ing electronic high-pitched discordant screech, taking over the soundtrack and drowning out Tony and the jubilant street. What is it? It’s the noise inside Tony’s head, the sound of a father’s realisation he has lost his son, the sound of the greatest pain. (And Nesbitt is so very very good at pain; he doesn’t just share it, he forces it on you.) |
| The Missing is not mawkish, or overly sentimental; it’s just very human, and very very sad. It’s also a thriller, about a hunt and an investigation, by the police initially, then by a father, with the help of a retired French detective. The press (British, of course) are also involved, though it’s not yet clear how. I imagine in a thoroughly disreputable way. | The Missing is not mawkish, or overly sentimental; it’s just very human, and very very sad. It’s also a thriller, about a hunt and an investigation, by the police initially, then by a father, with the help of a retired French detective. The press (British, of course) are also involved, though it’s not yet clear how. I imagine in a thoroughly disreputable way. |
| The thriller side of things is excellent, too, and provides the momentum to carry it through eight episodes. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, with only the left edge complete (Olly’s disappearance in 1998, time goes from left to right). And quite a lot of the right side has been done, though not one very important bit (but perhaps, as with so many real cases of disappearances, that part will never be completed, those pieces too are missing). In the middle are a lot of big spaces – not just to do with Olly and the investigation, but also with relationship breakdowns, and new relationships, and smears., and all the rest of the crap that accompanies something like this. | The thriller side of things is excellent, too, and provides the momentum to carry it through eight episodes. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, with only the left edge complete (Olly’s disappearance in 1998, time goes from left to right). And quite a lot of the right side has been done, though not one very important bit (but perhaps, as with so many real cases of disappearances, that part will never be completed, those pieces too are missing). In the middle are a lot of big spaces – not just to do with Olly and the investigation, but also with relationship breakdowns, and new relationships, and smears., and all the rest of the crap that accompanies something like this. |
| Most importantly, that noise, and the sickening feeling that accompanies it, never goes away. Even when it’s not actually there, on the soundtrack, it’s in your head. And however intriguing The Missing is as a thriller, it never lets you forget that at its heart is the story of loss and pain. Hauntingly brilliant television. | Most importantly, that noise, and the sickening feeling that accompanies it, never goes away. Even when it’s not actually there, on the soundtrack, it’s in your head. And however intriguing The Missing is as a thriller, it never lets you forget that at its heart is the story of loss and pain. Hauntingly brilliant television. |
| Also brilliant, though in a very different way: Life is Toff(BBC3). Francis Fulford, of Great Fulford, Devon, is no stranger to the limelight; there have been numerous appearances on so-called factual comedy TV since The F***ing Fulfords on Channel 4, a decade ago. Finally, he and his family have their own series. Where’s wife Kishanda though? I do hope she’s all right. Maybe she was simply fed up and left, ran off with the gardener, or fell through some crumbling plaster upstairs somewhere, lost and forgotten for ever? Oh, Francis replies promptly to my email, she’s suffering only from an aversion to TV cameras, plus she’s doing a book. | Also brilliant, though in a very different way: Life is Toff(BBC3). Francis Fulford, of Great Fulford, Devon, is no stranger to the limelight; there have been numerous appearances on so-called factual comedy TV since The F***ing Fulfords on Channel 4, a decade ago. Finally, he and his family have their own series. Where’s wife Kishanda though? I do hope she’s all right. Maybe she was simply fed up and left, ran off with the gardener, or fell through some crumbling plaster upstairs somewhere, lost and forgotten for ever? Oh, Francis replies promptly to my email, she’s suffering only from an aversion to TV cameras, plus she’s doing a book. |
| I’m sure loads of it is manufactured and more comedy than fact. But these are real people. Proper old-school aristos – gun-toting, potty-mouthed, piss-poor (in slow decline since about 1530, says Francis, proudly), with ducks in the drawing room and poos (the dog’s, you’d hope, though you never know) on the sofa. It’s both extraordinary and wonderful that people like this still exist, even if their only purpose now is to provide television entertainment for the plebs. | I’m sure loads of it is manufactured and more comedy than fact. But these are real people. Proper old-school aristos – gun-toting, potty-mouthed, piss-poor (in slow decline since about 1530, says Francis, proudly), with ducks in the drawing room and poos (the dog’s, you’d hope, though you never know) on the sofa. It’s both extraordinary and wonderful that people like this still exist, even if their only purpose now is to provide television entertainment for the plebs. |
| At least Francis realises this; I think they’re actually pretty media savvy. You want the boys to cover themselves in mud, then jump into the lake, followed by the dog? Sure. Anyway it is, to borrow a phrase they use often, fucking good fun. | At least Francis realises this; I think they’re actually pretty media savvy. You want the boys to cover themselves in mud, then jump into the lake, followed by the dog? Sure. Anyway it is, to borrow a phrase they use often, fucking good fun. |
| • This article was amended on 29 October 2014. An earlier version referred to a bar full of people watching France playing Brazil in the World Cup final. That should have been the quarter-final. |