Code Of Silence

BritBox trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qavn9WlmZzE

This would be the talk of the town if it was on Netflix. There'd be features about Rose Ayling-Ellis in all the newspapers and people would be talking about it, but...

It's on BritBox.

Having said that, it's number one on BritBox, deservedly so.

The only time I've felt this tense watching a TV series was when I viewed "The Bureau." Not only was I on the edge of my seat during the first three episodes, I actually considered turning it off, my anxiety was just too high.

Now we'd just seen Rose Ayling-Ellis in "Ludwig," the feel good series on BritBox. At times it's silly, but it's ultimately satisfying. What you've got is a misanthropic puzzle maker solving murders. I don't want to tell you much more other than to say one of the murders is of a teacher. And another member of the faculty is Ayling-Ellis. Who when questioned has an interpreter employing sign language to get the words across, even though she can respond in what seems like an almost regular voice.

So I was very surprised to watch "Code of Silence" and find Ayling-Ellis once again hearing challenged. Turns out in real life she's nearly deaf, she wears hearing aids but relies also on lip-reading and... If you do your research, you'll see that Ayling-Ellis was awarded an MBE...

But, what we've got here is a nearly deaf woman trying to make it in life, just wanting an opportunity, but despite lip service, no one wants to really give her a chance. So she's relegated to a cleaning job and...

She ends up working for the police, reading lips, but they always keep her at arm's length and she decides to take matters into her own hands and...

You're just waiting for her to get into trouble, to be exposed.

Stunningly, the series does not play out as one would expect. The plot twists, not in an unnatural way, but an unexpected one.

There are six episodes forty five minutes in length, it's not a big commitment, but you do have to sign up for BritBox, which is too heavy a lift for most people. And I get it, it's like being pecked to death by ducks with all these subscriptions. Apple just raised the price $3?? There's nothing on the damn channel. They drip out very few shows episode by episode and this discourages me from subscribing and by time the show is over all the hoopla, assuming there is any, is gone, and do I want to pay all that cash just to see one show?

You see Rose Ayling-Ellis making bad choices, but you can also see where she's coming from. You get what it's like to be non-hearing in a hearing world.

This is a really great series, I highly recommend it.


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