Ian Rankin Talks New Rebus TV Show

A Destructive Relationship

It starts this week and here’s Rebus Author & Executive Producer Ian Rankin on the approach they have taken with the new Rebus small-screen adaptation…

How does the new series differ from your novels?

In the new incarnation, there’s a fascinating focus on Rebus and his brother. There have been characters and situations in the books where I felt that in retrospect I didn’t do enough with them. Rebus’ brother was a really interesting character in the books, and eventually I just let him go, and he never returned. During our various conversations early on, Greg Burke zoned in on that almost blood brothers thing or that Jekyll & Hyde thing where you can have two brothers who are close to each other, who love each other, but potentially can destroy each other. I just thought that was a really interesting route that Greg chose for the series to follow. He takes us into the Jekyll & Hyde nature of Edinburgh.

Why is Gregory the perfect person to adapt your novels for the screen?

I’ve known Greg for years. I’m a huge fan of his work on stage and on screen. When he was persuaded to take this on – and he took a bit of persuading because he had a lot on his plate at the time – I was delighted. He comes from the same place as me. We grew up four miles apart, which is where Rebus comes from. We never knew each other back then, but his very first play was called Gagarin Way. Gagarin Way is a real street in a little village called Lumphinnans, which I used to go through every day on my way to school. Just as soon as I saw the phrase Gagarin Way, I thought, “Oh my god, this guy obviously comes from the same part of the world as me,” so I sought him out.

Did you discover that you had a lot in common?

Absolutely. We’ve got the same working-class roots, we’ve got the same sense of Fife being a very close-knit place, a very tribal place, a place that had a lot of pride, a lot of industry, a lot of coal mining – most of my family came from coal fields. But that industry went and a lot of the pride then dissipated and people felt neglected. So Rebus and his brother have all of that in their DNA, and I think a lot of that comes out in the series. His brother still lives in Fife, he’s not done as well for himself as Rebus has. He lives in a fairly scuzzy part of Fife, but he is trying to make a better life for himself, scratching a living as best he can. And there’s Rebus who, as a detective, is on a pretty good salary. We’ve put him in a street where he can actually walk out of his front door and see Edinburgh Castle, which is a bit of a cheat. That’s not where he stays in the books! But in the TV version, if he looks to his left, he can see the castle. So we get lots of lovely establishing shots.

Are you pleased with Gregory’s adaptation?

Very. I think long term fans will get a shock because they’re seeing young Rebus. Richard Rankin is not in his 70s or his 60s or his 50s, so they’re getting the quite macho Rebus from the early books, but set in contemporary times. We get the strength of Rebus as a quite a gung-ho cop, but set against contemporary issues, contemporary politics and contemporary problems that people have. At its best, a crime novel is a political novel insofar as it deals with the reasons why crime happens. A lot of the time it’s to do with people being stuck in a rut. They see no way out that is legal, and their life crumbles around them. So they turn to drugs and drink and that leads them to some very dark places. I think Gregory was interested in tackling some of those issues, and it works really well.

What further themes does Gregory address in Rebus?

There is great richness and complexity in his writing. He is also fascinated by the male ego. He’s really interested in what normative masculinity does to men, and how it can twist them, and how it can cause them to do terrible things. That’s been a theme that I think runs through quite a lot of his work: this notion of very strong, macho men, and that macho-ness isn’t always good for them – in fact, it’s never good for them. You’ve got that in the relationship between Rebus and his brother. When we first meet them in episode one, they are having a punch-up in the living room. That says quite a lot about not only your relationship but also your background.

What do you think Richard adds to the title role?

Oh, he’s terrific. I mean, you can’t take your eyes off him. He’s incredibly charismatic on screen. You’re absolutely gripped by him. He’s a lovely guy when you meet him but he completely inhabits the character. Rebus is attractive to women and attractive to men – you get all of that with Richard. Men are going to love watching him and women are going to love watching him. He just throws himself into it.

Why do you think the Rebus novels have struck such a chord all over the world?

The author is possibly the last person to know the answer to that question! I think Rebus is an engaging and complex character. He’s charismatic, unlike his creator! But also we watch him age more or less in real time. So if you’re a fan of the series, the Rebus you are reading about now is not the Rebus you were reading about 10 or 20 years ago. In the books he’s gone from being 40 years old, to being retired in poor health and getting on for 70. So it’s a very different world that he inhabits now. He’s no longer a serving police officer. He’s just a guy who wants to feel useful and wants to feel that he still has some skills as a detective, if only the world would allow him to use those skills. The world has changed around him and he has become a museum piece.

Why does the character of Rebus chime with people so much?

Rebus is dark, brooding and slightly dangerous and edgy. He’s someone people would like to meet for a short time. The books allow them to meet him for a short time, but I don’t think you’d want to hang out for too long. I mean, if he bumped into me, I’m sure we wouldn’t have much of a conversation before he got bored of me and wandered off. He’d be much more interested in the drink than he would be in the person who was talking to him. I think he also feels real to people, partly because he inhabits what is more or less a real city. He drinks in real bars, he worked in a real police station, he lives in a real street. You can actually trace his peregrinations around the city. Fans do come to the city looking for Rebus’s Edinburgh, and it’s there waiting for them.

How does Rebus develop over this series?

While being a big macho cop, he realises that doesn’t mean he can operate in the world as well as he could if he were less like that. So he’s surrounded by cops who are younger, more touchy feely, liberal and college educated. His way of doing things is different and doesn’t always work. It isn’t always the best way to go about it. So there’s a lot of lessons being learned by him during the course of the six episodes.

How would you sum up this drama?

It has really good storytelling and great acting. It’s also a very physical piece of work. A lot of crime stories on television these days are interested in forensics, or they’re interested in the crime scene or whatever. This is really about what the job of being a cop does to you. Does it coarsen you? Does it mean you live an uglier life because of the job you do? Being a cop makes you very wary of the people around you and of relationships. You’re always mistrusting people or thinking they’re out to do something to you or get the better of you or get something over on you. So it harks back in some ways to the kind of classic macho crime stories that a lot of us grew up with. But at the same time, it’s got all the modernity you could ask for.