Hillsborough

Jimmy McGovern highlighted 1989's Hillsborough tragedy in his Cracker episode To Be a Somebody. The death of 96 Liverpool FC fans in a crush spurred serial killer Albie Kinsella's (Robert Carlyle) misguided vendetta against the police, media and society in general. Stung by criticism of this show as insensitive, McGovern atoned by writing Hillsborough (1996). This iTV drama earns credibility by drawing on an extensive documentary record, yet proves compelling in its visceral anger.

On April 15th, 1989 Liverpool FC plays Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup match in Sheffield, England's Hillsborough Stadium. Fearing a riot, police crowd Liverpool fans into a small interior pen, resulting in a deadly crush. Trevor Hicks (Christopher Eccleston), who lost two teenaged daughters, organizes the Hillsborough Families Support Group to demand justice. Initially their efforts bear fruit, with Lord Justice Taylor's 1990 report damning the South Yorkshire police. But the government drags its feet holding anyone accountable, while Hicks and other survivors deal with media harassment and inexorable grief.

America's sports obsession scarcely touches British devotion to soccer; in many quarters, football is something akin to a religion. Even a cursory read of Hillsborough lays bare lingering class assumptions: that working class football fans are anarchic brutes who "behave like wild animals." Especially in Liverpool, an industrial city long regarded as England's armpit. While hooliganism has engendered many tragedies (from Heysel Stadium to 2007 riots in Catania, Italy), snobbish stereotyping provide a convenient excuse for official repression and political indifference.

McGovern and director Charles MacDougall take care not to sensationalize events, drawing on trial transcripts and eyewitness accounts. They show Hillsborough as the result of tragic mistakes rather than deliberate malice. But the self-serving official cover up, abetted by tabloids like The Sun, is inexcusable. From the beginning, the South Yorkshire Police seek to paint Liverpool fans as drunken animals; one tells a reporter he witnessed survivors robbing the dead. The full extent of police chicanery (including the doctoring of witness statements) didn't come to light until 2012's Hillsborough Independent Report, which makes McGovern's treatment seem generous.

But McGovern's as interested in the human toll as making a statement. Besides expected grief, Hicks deals also with his wife's (Annabelle Apsion) near-breakdown and public role heading the Support Group. Others don't handle it so well: Joe Glover (Scot Womack) receives the ultimate indignity of being blamed for his brother's death. The Support Group scenes crackle with drama, the survivors unable to maintain a united front against official indifference. After the coroner's inquest, a witness starts singing Liverpool's anthem You'll Never Walk Alone. Her colleagues are too consumed with rage to embrace this sentimental gesture.

Christopher Eccleston gives a commendable turn. Hicks is a difficult role, wracked with grief but forced to act as Hillsborough's calm public face. Eccleston nails both in a powerful performance, matched Annabelle Apsion's sensitive portrait of wife Jennifer. Ricky Tomlinson and David Womack provide less measured reactions; Tomlinson proves particularly powerful, unwilling to restrain his emotion. Maurice Roeves (The Last of the Mohicans) gives an odious performance, with Ian McDiarmid (Elizabeth I) provides the icy face of official justice.

Hillsborough is a remarkable work. While evincing the limitations of television drama, it conveys the raw anger and emotional devastation inherent in any disaster. Twenty-four years later, the quest for answers (and justice) continues unabated.