Legal thrillers and true-crime sagas often succeed at generating momentum but fail at conveying genuine humanity. “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” debuting Sunday at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), succeeds at both; it is a tender and shattering drama and a tense, twisty legal story.
Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates, a British sub-postmaster who radiates decency and integrity. He’s convinced — as are we, immediately — that his new Post Office-issued kiosk is the source of grave accounting errors, but dozens of calls lead him nowhere. He is told, repeatedly, that he’s the only person encountering any problems, and the Post Office fires him and accuses him of theft. With the support of his thoughtful wife, Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh, superb), he vows to clear his name.
Thus begins a 20-year saga, one of baffling malfeasance by the British Post Office that led to widespread suffering, with hundreds of people falsely accused of crimes. The sub-postmasters were contractually responsible for the perceived shortfalls, which sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of pounds. Some, like Jo (Monica Dolan), pleaded guilty just to avoid jail time. Some served prison sentences not just for crimes they did not commit, but crimes that did not even occur. Some filed for bankruptcy; some died from suicide.
“We just gotta trust in the British justice system, and everything’ll be all right,” says Lee (Will Mellor), one of the victims. He might as well be the guy in the horror movie who asks “what’s the worst that could happen?” before walking into a chain saw. When Alan finally manages to organize an advocacy and support group, we get our first glimmers of hope and relief barely poking through the Kafkaesque, viciously punitive morass.
“Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office” is true story, but in tabloid parlance, it is an unbelievable true story — the injustice it depicts is so outrageous that it defies comprehension. The show’s real sense of reality, then, flows forth from precise portraiture by the show’s writer, Gwyneth Hughes, and from intimate, grounded performances by Jones and Dolan. By the end of the four episodes, I knew all the characters so well I swear I could pick out birthday presents for them, the heroes and villains both.
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