Those who have seen the BBC offering "Doctor Foster" (2015-2017) will not be surprised to see that "Press" has two key figures in common with it, i.e. writer Mike Bartlett and Director Tom Vaughan. So, while "Foster" worked to deconstruct the myth of the stable and reliable and decent middle-class, "Press" homes in on the world of today's newspapers with a mission to reveal how the "journos" will stop at nothing, have no scruples whatever, and compete with each other on a cut-throat basis.
A difference here is of course that we in the audience hardly need telling these truths about the print media, because we are aware of these truths already!
In essence, The Herald and The Post are two titles operating respectively out of old and flashy new bases in the same London square (in real-life Clerkenwell). The Herald is failing at trying to set a slightly higher standard and moral tone, while The Post is thriving by going with salacious stories and a stop-at-nothing approach. Needless to say, the proximity ensures interaction between the two, and - less predictably - The Post does not quite enjoy carte blanche as its proprietor (played chillingly well by the great David Suchet) wants to keep in with the powers-that-be - the British PM in particular - so there ARE in fact some places it can't go. While the "Press" star at The Herald is not actually its Editor but senior journalist Holly Evans (Charlotte Riley), the key figure at The Post is indeed its Editor Duncan Allen (Ben Chaplin). Amazing quality scenes ensue when Suchet and Chaplin share the screen, while the various chemistry-filled interactions between Evans and Allen are of amazing emotional clout.
It will be clear from this that Chaplin's portrayal is a superb one, of a man far deeper, more complex, more intelligent and more troubled than he appears to be at first glance. While the character remains hard or impossible to like throughout, he makes regular switches from dominant, callous and unyielding to somehow-lost and near-pathetic with amazing ease; and we can at least feel some kind of sympathy at moments. His plotting and counterplotting (but also clear fascination) with Holly is splendid, but - though also ruthless and at times lacking in morals - Holly is in the end a more straightforward character - we know what drives her. In contrast, Duncan Allen is mysterious and sad and unknowable, even though a relationship with his yong son really matters to him, hence the desire on the part of several people to use this apparently single weakness against him.
While each episode focuses in on a separate storyline, in this way illustrating various well-known worst sides of the press (rarely we do see any redeeming features), there is also a main-thread story that comes to its climax in episode 6 and really serves to raise the pace - and the stakes - yet further. Hence the series comes to a fine crescendo in its final episode, and it is unlikely any viewer cold or unmoved by what is going on there.
Interestingly - and unlike in "Doctor Foster", at least one character here - the hitherto-unlikeable and immoral Ed Washburn (played by Paapa Essiedu) does make a morally-motivated decision towards the end of the finale, and that makes us feel a bit better, even as all around him have done what Ed usually specialises in, and been largely self-centred, callous and uncaring, irrespective of whether the tone is theoretically one of the moral crusade or the desire to break or ruin certain people on more or less of a whim.
Quite an achievement then, and certainly a rivetting watch in a yucky kind of way.
A difference here is of course that we in the audience hardly need telling these truths about the print media, because we are aware of these truths already!
In essence, The Herald and The Post are two titles operating respectively out of old and flashy new bases in the same London square (in real-life Clerkenwell). The Herald is failing at trying to set a slightly higher standard and moral tone, while The Post is thriving by going with salacious stories and a stop-at-nothing approach. Needless to say, the proximity ensures interaction between the two, and - less predictably - The Post does not quite enjoy carte blanche as its proprietor (played chillingly well by the great David Suchet) wants to keep in with the powers-that-be - the British PM in particular - so there ARE in fact some places it can't go. While the "Press" star at The Herald is not actually its Editor but senior journalist Holly Evans (Charlotte Riley), the key figure at The Post is indeed its Editor Duncan Allen (Ben Chaplin). Amazing quality scenes ensue when Suchet and Chaplin share the screen, while the various chemistry-filled interactions between Evans and Allen are of amazing emotional clout.
It will be clear from this that Chaplin's portrayal is a superb one, of a man far deeper, more complex, more intelligent and more troubled than he appears to be at first glance. While the character remains hard or impossible to like throughout, he makes regular switches from dominant, callous and unyielding to somehow-lost and near-pathetic with amazing ease; and we can at least feel some kind of sympathy at moments. His plotting and counterplotting (but also clear fascination) with Holly is splendid, but - though also ruthless and at times lacking in morals - Holly is in the end a more straightforward character - we know what drives her. In contrast, Duncan Allen is mysterious and sad and unknowable, even though a relationship with his yong son really matters to him, hence the desire on the part of several people to use this apparently single weakness against him.
While each episode focuses in on a separate storyline, in this way illustrating various well-known worst sides of the press (rarely we do see any redeeming features), there is also a main-thread story that comes to its climax in episode 6 and really serves to raise the pace - and the stakes - yet further. Hence the series comes to a fine crescendo in its final episode, and it is unlikely any viewer cold or unmoved by what is going on there.
Interestingly - and unlike in "Doctor Foster", at least one character here - the hitherto-unlikeable and immoral Ed Washburn (played by Paapa Essiedu) does make a morally-motivated decision towards the end of the finale, and that makes us feel a bit better, even as all around him have done what Ed usually specialises in, and been largely self-centred, callous and uncaring, irrespective of whether the tone is theoretically one of the moral crusade or the desire to break or ruin certain people on more or less of a whim.
Quite an achievement then, and certainly a rivetting watch in a yucky kind of way.