Watching the title sequence of AGAINST THE CROWD rings a few bells somewhere . I vaguely remember the disconcerting title sequence and the rather depressing title music but have been unable to find much information on the show . Apparently it's a series of dramas featuring outsiders from society . In effect an existentialist contemporary kitchen sink drama and perhaps not something you'd associate with the fertile imagination and if Murrain hadn't been scripted by Kneale I doubt if I'd watched it in the first place but it has received a number of good reviews on this site from people who watched BEASTS so I sat down with high expectations
In my review of The Dummy episode of BEASTS I suggested Nigel Kneale had a very low opinion of actors due to his own experiences of appearing on stage in bit parts . After seeing Murrain I'm left with the impression that a dislike for actors might , if not stem from , then certainly be reinforced by this teleplay . The cast are to put it bluntly rather dreadful . In order to convince the audience this is an insular village inhabited by inbred superstitious locals everyone must talk in broad regional brogues which will have you reaching for the off switch of the volume control . It also means the cast are too busy keeping up their unnatural accents to give performances that are in anyway convincing . They also tend to get shouty wouty instead of dramatic . The cast are to be honest uniformly dreadful
Nigel Kneale often emphasised that he wasn't a science fiction or horror writer so I wasn't expecting a Hammer horror film but even so it's a disappointment . There's an aspect of the rational arguing against superstitious nonsense but this was much better developed in Kneale's 1979 QUATERMASS serial . I guess Murrain might have worked better if there was a hook suggesting black magic but as it stands this is a very mundane drama but would have been much improved by better actors