There is little doubt that Tony Conroy’s voice was one that society needed to hear. The taxi driver focal point of The Night Caller (Channel Five, Sunday) was once a Liverpool school teacher who, after 27 years loyal service, was ‘thrown on the scrapheap’ like an old blackboard duster. Yes, writer Nick Saltrese was right to home in on the acute area that is men’s mental health, given today’s male suicide rates and increasing sense of social isolation.
We could appreciate the inner turmoil in the mind of the science master with the chemical imbalance, reduced to seeking comfort from a stranger, in this case Lawrence, (Sean Pertwee) a late-night radio presenter. “A complete waste of space, I’ve been called,” says Tony (Robert Glenister) to his new best friend on air. But while this is a story that society needs to hear, was it a drama that needed to be seen? The Night Caller isn’t a tale quite as depressed as all the Scots Tories and Nats put together, but it’s close.
We discover that Lawrence is an inciter, a disembodied head with a contrived conscience, using his listeners to work up anger – and ratings. And just to compound Tony’s unrelenting misery, no sooner do the clouds part (a little) in the form of a date with café worker Rosa (Suzanne Packer), than he has to contend with her ex-partner/thug. Robert Glenister as Tony (Image: free) What we have then is an hour of unrelenting misery playing out in Tony’s head.
That’s not to say it’s not gr.
