Secret Life on Channel 4 last night took on paedophilia, or rather the story of a recently released paedophile trying to adjust to freedom. Matthew Macfadyen took the lead in this festival of laughs, a ‘brave’ role for a relatively young actor more suited to being Darcy or some bit of fluff in BBC dramas. I say ‘brave’ because anyone who is familiar with the tabloids in the UK will be aware that even saying the word ‘paedophile’ is akin to dropping one’s trousers and waving an engorged member in the face of baby Jesus.
It was a grim affair; like watching Oranges are not the Only Fruit with Ebola. Largely, one was sympathetic to the character, though of course one tried not to be for fear of Daily Mail readers beating the door down to the flat and hacking off my bag with a shard of pottery. Turns out the character (that’s the character, not me, I only like women over the age of 45) had been abused by his father (grew up happily in Surrey, I saw the very top of my dad’s knob once and that was only because he’s forgotten to lock the toilet door when he was having a plop) and had subsequently gone on to do the same to little girls.
The movie gently rambled off with his day-to-day comings and goings, counselling sessions, signing the sex offenders’ register, working in a garden (why is it when they portray oddballs, they always seem to work in fucking gardens?) and occasionally getting chased, Keystone Cops style, by Daily Mail-reading skinheads. I found that part shit by the way, it simply didn’t work but it lead up to the inevitable crowd of chanting Daily Mail readers with placards once they’d discovered that a house on their street was a refuge for paedos and, as it turned out, asylum seekers. The chanting Daily Mail readers weren’t fussed about the asylum seekers largely, I should imagine, as they were unaware they were there. Had they known then the programme would’ve ended right there in a fucking huge fireball with the emergency services attempting to break through a cordon of thousands of Daily Mail readers all tooled up with croquet hammers and garden Boules.
It was desperate viewing; needless to say I assume some basic research on the part of the filmmakers had been carried out to the point that the character’s story is fairly typical of sex offender’s lives following a spell in the nick? Sadly, the filmmakers were unable to prevent themselves from capping the once quite sedate pace and plot with a sensationalist twist, that in my opinion, undermined all the adequate work they’d done up until that point.
After being effectively driven out of his dwellings the character (not me, I was at home watching this with a scotch) happened across a funfair. Previously we’d seen him doing everything he could to avoid any contact with kids at all in order to avoid the temptation to reoffend. Having been let down by society, he was now doing everything he could to re-offend. In a frankly idiotic scene at the fair he attempts to seduce a 12-year-old girl (played by a very short 32 year old) and the whole thing was as convincing as David Hasselhoff playing the Dane. Anyway, he controls his urges and walks her home without so much as a tickle (though she kissed HIM, THE FUCKING SLATTERN)
He then nips back home and hangs himself, the end. Really it was that ludicrous, which was a shame as I thought MacFadyen was jolly good in his role. He managed to balance empathy and threat with conviction and for once the filmmakers had managed to get the fucking light right throughout.
Oh, a bit of advice for Daily Mail reading skinheads: If you really want to catch a nonce, screeching to a halt in a car 10 yards from where he’s standing and screaming, ‘there he is, get him’ isn’t the best course of action.
Tags: Channel 4, Gurning twats, Matthew MacFadyen, Paedophiles, Secret Life, Skinhead, Television, The UK
Watch With Mothers 
April 20, 2007 at 12:19 pm
The very end was poor, with the suicide – very heavy-handed. Up to that point it was brilliant, I thought.
April 20, 2007 at 12:24 pm
That sounds a barrel of laughs. Glad I watched The Wild Geese instead.
April 21, 2007 at 1:29 am
Secret Life, Channel 4
A ‘wonderful’ drama, encapsulating all the fears, anxieties and destruction caused by an uncaring society, about a subject it knows little about. This is wherever one is in the ‘SO’ scale, under arrest or simply suspected.
The ‘hostel/centre’ staff were far too aloof and aggressive, for most people who work in those environments, particularly ‘clinics’. I have met some wonderful staff in such organisations and a tiny number of ogres.
However, as a ‘low-level SO’, everything else was pretty bang on, in my experience, and in that of others, that could be concentrated into 90 minutes.
Well done Joffe, Macfadyen, C4 and all those involved.
Dr Nigel Leigh Oldfield.
April 22, 2007 at 2:09 am
Where’s the 50 Greatest Comedians article gone?
April 22, 2007 at 11:36 am
No idea… maybe disappeared in a puff of needless spite.
April 22, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I was looking at a photo the other day of the old gang. I was amazed to find I’d been erased from the image … and who the hell’s that coming in with an ice pick? Hello? Wha …? ‘Ere, ‘ang on … put that down … oh … shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!
April 24, 2007 at 9:20 pm
eh up a lie!
lovin the pedo documentoree. i am 16 and one tyme a man did tuch the willow!
April 24, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Very good, Chris. Very mature…
April 25, 2007 at 2:16 pm
As someone who watched Scret Life and works with convicted sex offenders with the ‘Circle’ that was mentioned in the documentary (Although it’s not a religious group as was mentioned!), I think it was a very accurate representation of a sex offender who can never be accpeted back in to society.
Unfortunately, the lack of services avaliable as shown in the programme is also true and it’s sad to see men who are genuinely trying to change their way of life not being assisted in this, or not being seen as a worthy cause.
April 25, 2007 at 2:49 pm
As pointed out in the article, any willingness on the part of the public to ‘accept’ reforming/reformed sex offenders is subjugated by all the hard work the tabloids do in order to sell their fucking newspapers.
In my opinion the solution is simple, curb the sensationalist comment from the free press, but in doing so, the freedom of the press is compromised and that is also unacceptable.
It’s A Catch 22.