Sean O'Grady on Broken

After the Chichester Festival event yesterday, we came home to enjoy the final episode of "Broken". It was a first class piece of work and only someone given to petty carping could possibly find fault with it.

I turned to the "i" newspaper this morning to find that Sean O'Grady apparently hadn't liked it and smugly dismissed it as "ridiculous".

The breathtaking scene in which the gambling machines were smashed by the people who had most to lose was lost on O'Grady. So was the exceptional sermon on casting the money-changers out of the temple. O'Grady is the former economics editor of the Independent and clearly the anger against the casino society expressed by Father Michael (Sean Bean) went right over his head.

I take issue with O'Grady's arrogant dismissal of "Broken". I would submit that Jesus could have been tried for criminal damage for casting the money-changers out of the temple. He did get in quite a lot of trouble with the authorities as it was!

As for the ending which O'Grady called "ridiculous", I thought that it showed the people Father Michael had tried (and sometimes failed) to help queueing up to give him a bit of support when he needed it.