Resurrection and Remembrance

Revelations Volume 1 on DVD

“It all seems rather unreal”, says Bishop’s son Gabriel Rattigan (Stephen Mapes) of his impending wedding to Rachel (Lucy Robinson). His comment – made in Sally Wainwright’s opening episode of this unloved mid-90′s soap – could be taken to sum up Revelations, with its mixture of stylised performances, matriarchal melodrama, and stereotyped country life. It’s unreality TV, but at the same time there’s something curiously compulsive about it.

Revelations has been resurrected on Network DVD largely as a result of interest in its co-creators: Tony Wood (perhaps chiefly known for his work as Coronation Street’s producer), and one Russell T. Davies. This ITV/Granada show was one of Davies’ first moves out of kids’ television and into the wider world of TV drama, and despite therefore being classifiable as ‘RTD juvenilia’, it is clearly marked by his skill as a storyteller. Clunky opening episodes announce that artist Gabriel has a secret as yet unrevealed to his new wife, but this big Soap Opera Secret turns out to be something of a writer’s S.O.S. It’s a pure story hook, and one that doesn’t really go anywhere across the thirteen episodes making up this Volume 1 release. Instead, Gabriel’s secret gives way to several other plotlines, and it isn’t until episode nine – the first to be written by Davies – that Revelations reveals its genuine concerns.

Because the series isn’t really about Gabriel’s methadone treatment at all; it’s far more interested in the love life of Bishop Edward Rattigan (Paul Shelley), and in Gabriel’s potentially ambiguous sexuality. These storylines, and the way they kick the show up a gear, are regulation Davies. It’s not just that his dialogue has a recognisable authorial voice – “I’ll shame you”, Edward is told by his secretary, Anne (Margo Gunn) – or that a focus on homosexuality and identity is familiar from later Russell T. projects. Nor is it that the show’s format is partly premised on a power struggle between Gabriel’s new wife and his mother, Jessica (played by Judy Loe), thereby offering an example of Davies’ representation of strong women. Beyond these writerly tics and tacks, episode nine feels, strangely, like an episode twelve from one of Davies’ series of Doctor Who: it’s where things suddenly fall into place as major plot developments occur, and you can’t wait to find out what happens next. Ep nine also plays the same trick as World War III (no, really): when you’re not shown an obvious wide or reverse shot, you’ve got to wonder what’s being concealed or de-emphasised directly behind a character (in Who it was a lift enabling the ninth Doctor’s escape. Here, it’s… well, it’s not a lift).

Although the first few episodes are shaky, it’s worth sticking with Revelations, as there are several relationship-based story twists that impact upon the world of Edward Rattigan and his wife. It’s Judy Loe as Jessica who starts to dominate proceedings, becoming the show’s de facto lead (and its older actors are, on the whole, far more convincing than their younger colleagues). Gabriel may believe that his father the Bishop is a perfect, honourable, charismatic man of the Church, but we’re shown the painful gaps between this image and Edward Rattigan’s emotional reality. Much of Revelations‘ drama ends up hinging on this classic structure: things are not what they seem. Mind you, we typically have to take it on trust that Edward cuts an impressive figure, because Paul Shelley isn’t given many opportunities to convey this about his character.

Religious beliefs are tested in a series of ways, with rampant hypocrisy eventually becoming the order of the day. But Revelations is careful not to become a programmatic exploration of Church of England “issues”, and the character of Simon (Eamonn Riley) is actively used to mock this possibility. Simon repeatedly discusses women priests, or whether divorcees can be married, only to be pretty much told to shut up. As a result, these sorts of issues are gestured at across the first 13 episodes, but they’re deliberately voiced in the show’s margins and via an office bore of a character, as if they are a chore needing to be swiftly dealt with.

Along the way there’s a Baxter mentioned, and members of the Tyler family are featured, but it’s the use of counterpoint – characters discussing events that ironically illuminate their own predictaments – and the repetition of themed bits of dialogue (mentions of shame and falling), which point up Davies’ quality of writing. He even works in an occasional sliver of dark, mordant humour, as for example when Simon phones Anne to warn that her employer is in danger of giving her the push (dialogue from episode eleven which has to be heard in context to be believed).

However, there are no characters which spring to life with the vitality of a Stuart Jones or a Vince Tyler, and I can understand why this series is so rarely remembered. The Internet offers no detailed episode guides; there’s no Revelations Appreciation Society; no script books nor anniversary celebrations. Too forgotten even to be cult TV, perhaps this DVD will create new remembrances. Revelations isn’t so bad it’s good, though: it’s a workmanlike soap drama shamed by some of its actors but elevated by compelling storytelling.

As well as Davies, other episodes on these two discs are contributed by Sally Wainwright, Chris Thompson, Corrie stalwart Peter Whalley, and Catherine Hayes. Wainwright has the tough task of setting up the soap’s world by beginning with a wedding – a knowing inversion of romantic narrative. At first, I found the character of Rachel irritatingly stunted (both in terms of writing and Robinson’s acting), while Mapes, as Gabriel, struck me as similarly stilted: they really do make quite a couple. But the storylining won me round, and by episode ten I genuinely cared about the show’s characters. Come episode thirteen even Simon the cipher is revealed to have an inner emotional life, suddenly switching from bumbling comic relief to tragically unrequited love.

Not quite a revelation, then, this DVD release is nevertheless a striking surprise, and for anyone with an interest in Russell T. Davies-as-auteur it offers an intriguing watch. T Is For Television, written by Mark Aldridge and Andy Murray, argues that the series “does not sit comfortably with Davies’ later career” (p.71), but in light of Revelations‘ matriarchal focus, emergent interest in homosexuality, and storylining energies, I’m not fully persuaded of this fact. I ended up mainlining the last few episodes, gripped by well-crafted plotting. Revelations Volume 1 may be a poorer substitute compared to Davies’ later dramas – a sort of metaphorical TV methadone – but younger Russell’s key strengths as a writer-creator and a gifted storyteller are already addictively in place. Roll on Volume 2. And where are the DVDs of Springhill?

Revelations Volume 1 is released on DVD by Network on 24th October, 2011