Pop Vultures

When I heard that Anthony Head (best known for playing Giles in Buffy) was appearing in The Invisibles, a BBC drama about a retired master criminal trying to go straight and failing, I was cautiously optimistic. I’m a big fan of heist shows, like Hustle, in which clever types plot to steal money in ingenious ways from foolish and gullible rich folk. And although I’ve never been an avid Buffy fan, I remember liking the fact that Head played a British stereotype (stuffy posh bookish librarian type) as sympathetically and three-dimensionally as he could. So I was keen to see what the BBC would produce from this intriguing recipe.

Unfortunately, The Invisibles just didn’t quite hit the mark. Head plays Maurice Riley, the best safe cracker Britain has ever produced, who retired from criminal life along with his buddy Syd Woolsey eighteen years previously and moved to the Spanish coast, presumably to avoid prosecution. (Boring but necessary fact: before the European Union rectified the situation, Britain didn’t have an extradition treaty with Spain, so criminals could hide out there and work on their suntans unhindered by justice.) But now, bowing to pressure from his wife, who wants to grow old in her own country, Maurice is back in Britain, and he and Syd are attempting to lead honest lives in graceful retirement, in a sleepy Devon village.

Forgive me a boring but necessary tangent: Since 2003 there has been an extradition treaty between Spain and Britain, so how Maurice and Syd have managed to avoid being clapped in irons since then is inexplicable, as is their decision to move back to the UK voluntarily, since surely they would have been arrested at passport control? Honestly, you could drive a truck through the plot holes in this show. Sorry, I digress.

Anyway, of course, this ‘going straight’ plan lasts all of about five minutes, before Syd’s good-for-nothing son gets into trouble and Syd persuades Maurice to do one last job to pay off some family debts. As you can probably imagine, at this point, hijinks ensue. There are lots of scenes involving watching the tumblers in safe locks click into place, while ‘whacka whacka’ incidental music ratchets up the tension. There are moments involving penlights, and people getting tied to chairs and then punched, and last-minute will-he-cut-the-right-wire-to-disable-the-alarm thrills. It’s all unbelievably predictable, unfortunately.

I still like Anthony Head, and he does bring his trademark charm and charisma to the role of Maurice, caught between the desire for a quiet life and the thrill of getting away with one last job. Unfortunately though, his performance is considerably dampened by the fact that his accent keeps switching between his natural middle-class English twang and the accent Maurice is presumably supposed to have, that of the tough round the edges, slightly Essex-y criminal element. It’s highly distracting. I actually preferred Warren Clarke’s performance as Syd, which is at least consistently slapstick and playing-for-laughs.

The Invisibles isn’t bad, exactly. It’s just not nearly as great as I was hoping it would be. But if I haven’t entirely put you off, you can find it on BBC1, Thursdays at 9pm, or on the endlessly marvellous BBC iPlayer anytime you fancy it.