Looking for Mickey

Micky Dixon, known to the papers as Mad Micky, has broken out of prison to protest his innocence over his latest conviction, and the press are doing what the press do. They swarm. The conviction, he says, was wrong, and the prison was not listening. Running is the only argument left. Terry is looking after him, which mostly means keeping the man out of sight while every journalist in London tries to find him. It is a desperate thing to do, running from the law to make yourself heard, and Micky is committed to it.

But Arthur sees the situation with his usual clarity. There is money in a fugitive's exclusive story, and no one is better placed to sell it than the man who is hiding him. So Arthur starts dealing while Terry runs interference, and the whole arrangement wobbles between a man's last chance to clear his name and a headline auction. The newsmen circling, Oates and the editor, are playing their own game entirely. Nobody in the story quite wants the same thing, which is the point.

Tony Hoare and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Tom Clegg directed. John Labanowski makes Micky's desperation believable, Diana Malin is Debbie, John Moffatt is Freddie Baker, Patrick Malahide is Chisholm, Tom Watson is Anker, Richard Simpson is the editor and Jim McManus is George. A young Bill Nighy pops up as Oates, which is the kind of casting detail the show is loved for.

There is something quietly sour at the heart of this one. A man risks his liberty to be believed, and the people around him are pricing up the story before he's been missed. Terry is the only one treating it as a matter of trust, and the show lets that sit. It is not a comfortable episode, and it doesn't try to be.