Takin' Over The Asylum

Readers with unusually keen powers of observation may have picked up on my feelings regarding David Tennant. To keep the rest of you up to speed, I am a fan. I love Blackpool; I adore Casanova; I was blown away by Recovery; I have a passionate but dysfunctional relationship with Doctor Who, but nothing that couldn't be solved by watching certain episodes with the sound switched off, or indeed pretending that those episodes never happened and just staying home with the curtains shut, the Family of Blood two-parter and a really big box of tissues (for the tears, dear readers, for the tears.) Despite all of this, I must be honest and say that Mr Tennant has appeared in his fair share of crap. Put it this way: I won't be investing in the DVD of Secret Smile any time soon.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached 'Takin Over The Asylum', the 1994 comedy drama series about a radio station in a mental hospital, in which young David (pre nose job - or pre growing into his nose) plays a manic-depressive disc jockey with a dreadful '90s floppy haircut and a taste for flappy sweatshirts. There was a lot of potential for it all to go horribly wrong.

And oh my god.......... it is brilliant. Really, really something special. The lead is not Tennant but Ken Stott, who plays an alcoholic amateur DJ with a depressing day job in a Glasgow double glazing firm. Replaced in his hospital radio stint by a very young and fleeting Ashley Jensen, he gets a new position reopening the radio station at the local asylum. At first doubtful, he begins to make friends with the patients, and even begins a tentative romance. As we learn more about the rival pulls of his unsatisfying home life and his passion for the station, we realise that the boundaries between madness and sanity are not as clear as they might seem.

Everything about this show is remarkable - the acting by all parties, the screenplay by Donna Franceschild, who imdb suggests has not done much since (I hope by choice, because the thought that she's not getting offered work is too depressing), the music (loads of incredible classics, though reperformed for the DVD as it was the only way to straighten out all the rights for the release). It's funny, it's thought-provoking, it's incredibly moving, it's intelligent, it's sensitive, and yet completely entertaining at all times.

Go, go, buy buy, or at least rent. You won't regret it, even if you are not as taken with the charms of DT as some of us.