Last updated 09:17, Saturday, 10 May 2008

A sore point in these parts – and quite right too.

Devastation: ITV’s Flood

When there’s a flood in the north it’s a rainy day. If it hits London, it’s The Poseidon Adventure.

It hit London in ITV1’s Flood (Sunday/Monday) – a disaster movie by assumed name of television drama. Skipping blithely over the mere incidentals of a wall of water hitting Scotland and washing away Arboath, inconvenience turned to devastating storm-force only when the capital got its feet wet and telly’s A-listers paddled into view.

Robert Carlyle played Rob, the earnest marine engineer brooding from the start like a man destined to be an all-action hero. He was called to the Thames Barrier, where he had to face the Barrier’s manager, his ex-wife, Sam (Jessalyn Gilsig), whose office was full of roses from her new boyfriend. Not best pleased.

Also there was his estranged father Leonard (Tom Courtenay – a know-all who could have told even Michael Fish this was always bound to happen because the Barrier had been put in the wrong place... it should have been on the Eden).

Only it didn’t happen, did it?

Great computer-generated imagery and fast-paced storytelling notwithstanding, there was a sting in the tail of this London-obsessed fiction-stranger-than-fantasy. If any TV dramatists could be bothered to extend their line of vision and raise the bar of imagination above and beyond the north circular road, they might be surprised to find a story anchored in flood-misery working better if it were to be located where flooding actually happens.

Much more believable... however ridiculously fantastic.