Cracker is a British crime drama series produced by Granada Television for ITV, created and principally written by Jimmy McGovern. Set in Manchester, the series follows a criminal psychologist (or "cracker"), Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, played by Robbie Coltrane, who works with the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to help them solve crimes.
The show consists of three series, originally broadcast from 1993 to 1995. A 100-minute special set in Hong Kong followed in 1996 and another two-hour story in 2006. The show won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series in 1995 and 1996, and Coltrane received the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in three consecutive years (1994 to 1996).
Overview
Fitz is Scottish of Irish origin, alcoholic, a chain smoker, obese, sedentary, addicted to gambling, manic, foul-mouthed and sarcastic, yet cerebral and brilliant. He is a genius in his speciality: criminal psychology. As Fitz confesses in "Brotherly Love": "I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much."
Each case spanned several episodes and cliffhangers were quite often used, but it was not until the end of the second series that a cliffhanger was employed to tie off the series. Some of the plotlines in the cases took as their starting point real events such as the Hillsborough disaster, whilst others were purely fictional with only tangential ties to actual events.
Several different psychotic types were explored during the run of the show with increasingly complex psychological motivations that, as the series entered the middle of the second series, began to expand beyond the criminals being investigated to the regular cast members. As the series moved forward, the storylines became as much about the interactions of the regulars as they were about the crimes. In many later episodes, in fact, the crimes often became background to intense, provocative explorations of the police officers' reactions to the crimes they investigated.
To emphasise how fine a line the police (and Fitz) walk in their close association with criminals, all three series featured several stories in which the police become victims of crime or themselves commit criminal acts such as rape, obstruction of justice and assault and battery.
Characters
Main cast
Robbie Coltrane as Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald. The character was named after the English poet and writer Edward FitzGerald, according to series creator Jimmy McGovern. Coltrane won three consecutive BAFTA awards for the role, a streak matched only by Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. Christopher Eccleston as DCI David Billborough Ricky Tomlinson as DCI Charlie Wise Geraldine Somerville as DS Jane "Panhandle" Penhaligon Lorcan Cranitch as DS Jimmy Beck Barbara Flynn as Judith Fitzgerald Kieran O'Brien as Mark Fitzgerald Tess Thomson as Katy Fitzgerald John Evans as James Fitzgerald Ian Mercer as DS George Giggs Colin Tierney as DC Bobby Harriman Robert Cavanah as DC Alan Temple Stan Finni as Sgt Smith Wil Johnson as PC/DC Michael Skelton Clive Russell as Danny Fitzgerald. Russell was cast at Coltrane's recommendation. Amelia Bullmore (Series 1.5, 1.6) and Isobel Middleton (Series 2.1, 2.3, 3.1) as Catriona Bilborough Edward Peel as the Chief Super