Now streaming–Code of Silence, a surprising, tense, mystery series

Review by C.J. Bunce

Partially deaf creator and writer Catherine Moulton gives hearing viewers a window into the world of being a young deaf woman in the new BritBox series Code of Silence, a police procedural with an interesting twist. Rose Ayling-Ellis plays Alison Brooks, a young deaf woman in Canterbury, England, who works at the police station’s employee cafeteria. When the robbery squad seeks a department lip reader to help uncover the details of a local planned robbery, they find Alison as an employee who reported having lip reading as a skill set. So they tap her as a civilian to watch closed circuit video of the gang, and report what they say. The best feature of this six-episode series is the ability to convey the difficulty of reading lips, shared by including the visual unjumbling of vowels and consonants as Alison uses her skill to try to assist. The result is a surprisingly tense series, especially since she’s portrayed as an ordinary entry level Englander, who in addition to getting in over her head and too close to criminals, she makes plenty of bad decisions.

Alison lives with her mom who is also deaf (played by Fifi Garfield) and about to lose the house she rents because the landlord is readying to sell the property as part of a crooked land deal. Alison attends a tenant meeting with her mom but because it is crowded they leave not really understanding what is happening to them. Alison seeks assistance from a former boyfriend she is trying to distance herself from (played by Roif Choutan), simply because she has moved on.

Every moment of Alison’s life is an opportunity to misunderstand the events around her or to be misunderstood. This includes being fired from her second job as a waitress. Alison is solicited to help the police with the lip reading work by DS Ashleigh Francis, a sympathetic cop played by Charlotte Ritchie. Ashleigh’s boss is DI James Marsh, played by Andrew Buchan, who at first is impatient and over-reaches when it comes to using Alison’s talent. Ashleigh warns Alison to keep the police work confidential and in the office, but Alison is too eager to help.

That eagerness is what sets the tone and theme of the series. The story is not so much about Alison not being able to hear as Alison wanting someone to listen to her. She wants someone to come to her for help, and her skill is uniquely useful, even more than the police think. The loss of her second job coincides with Alison furtively attempting to get hired at the pub where the robbery gang has been meeting. This brings her in touch with a young man from the group named Liam, played by Kieron Moore. Liam is from a series of foster homes and keeps his own secrets, but he is quick to make friends with Alison, now hired to tend bar.

Liam and Alison grow closer when he hits her with his car when she is riding her bicycle home one night. Alison’s antics come to light when she’s confronted with the next lip reading session, and Liam explains to his peers why he wasn’t where he was supposed to be for the gang–he was at the hospital helping Alison. Caught together on CCTV footage, Alison is berated by Ashleigh and James at first, but with no better leads they return for her assistance.

The robbery gang has a particularly loathsome and scary fellow behind it all. That’s the pub owner Braden, played by Joe Absolom, who has a standout performance, harnessing the kind of bad guy electricity we’ve seen from the likes of Malcolm McDowell, Willem Dafoe, and Denis Leary. Braden doesn’t trust Alison from the beginning and much of the tension of the show is how close Braden gets to Alison and intimidates her, even before the show’s climactic clash of good guys and bad guys.

Alison gets too close to Liam as she tries to go undercover to get all the information she can to help the police, risking becoming a part of the criminal enterprise, including sleeping with Liam. It’s these kinds of decisions where the series loses its way. Wasn’t there a way to the end that could have maintained Alison is an intelligent young woman instead of making knee-jerk decisions and falling for the bad guy in full view of police surveillance? But this is the story Moulton chooses to tell, which in fairness is treating Alison like any other protagonist making poor choices in a story, be she hearing or not.

The clever use of lip reading, Rose Ayling-Ellis’s complete immersion into the role, and the great tension that she creates will keep viewers coming back for more. It all adds up to a series worth checking out. Catch all six episodes of Code of Silence, now streaming on BritBox.

Catch up with our reviews of other quality British TV series (including Australian and New Zealand shows you’d find on PBS, BritBox, or Acorn TV) beginning with our Top 10: Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, Zen, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Mr. Selfridge, Guilt, The IPCRESS File, The Hour, The Gentlemen, Black Doves, and Shetland. You could stay pretty busy with our full list of top British TV recommendations, including Van Der Valk, the first season of Sherlock, Deadloch, Troppo, Mystery Road: Origin, Death Valley, Dept. Q, Bodkin, The Bletchley Circle, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Grace, Hinterland, Glitch, Mystery Road, Culprits, Harrow, The Day of the Jackal, (Code of Silence fits here), Professor T, and Supacell. After you’ve seen all of those, try Marchlands, Lightfields, State of Play, I, Jack Wright, Population 11, Protection, After the Flood, Traces, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Ordeal by Innocence, Unforgotten, The Bay, Wild Bill, Quirke, Requiem, The Gloaming, The Clearing, The One, The Tourist, The Tower, Collateral, Roadkill, Stay Close, The Salisbury Poisonings, and A Confession.

Other British series across genres that are worth checking out (a few still to be reviewed here) include police procedurals Luther and Case Histories, fun romps like Monarch of the Glen, Para Handy, Cranford, Viva Blackpool, and As Time Goes By, and cozy mysteries Rosemary and Thyme, Father Brown, Hetty Wainthropp, and Death in Paradise. One of the best of all British productions is the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, which is in our British Top 10 (and the original is good, too). Of course there’s always Doctor Who for your sci-fi fix (and spin-offs Torchwood and Class), The Watch for your fantasy fix, Truth Seekers and Sea of Souls for your supernatural fix, and Spaced for more sci-fi fun, and we really should add House, MD, for Brit lead Hugh Laurie’s one-of-a-kind performance. (We’ve also reviewed but don’t heartily recommend so much Dublin Murders, The ABC Murders, The Pale Horse, Reef Break, The One That Got Away, The Silence, The Five, The Missing, Thirteen, or Broadchurch, as well as No Offence, which could have merited a review for its first season but, like Sherlock, its later seasons were a disappointment).