Simply Media, out now (and as part of 1990: The Complete Collection)

A totalitarian Britain where journalist Jim Kyle is an unlikely hero…

1990 is one of those series that those who saw it (or read creator Wilfred Greatorex’s novels based on the show) haven’t forgotten, but which has otherwise disappeared into the great melting pot of British telefantasy, never repeated, never released to home media. Simply Media are to be applauded for digging this out of the archives and giving it a wider release…

Because 1990, like Nigel Kneale’s final Quatermass serial which harks from roughly the same period, has become far more prescient than any of us would like. Greatorex saw the series as “1984 plus six” and comes up with a far more likely scenario than Anthony Burgess did in his similar attempt at an Orwellian future in his 1985.

A bankrupt country has to enforce rationing and other population controls and those who dissent face electro-convulsive therapy to make them more pliant. Most newspapers are under state control, but The Star is one of the few independents remaining, and its main writer, Jim Kyle, played by a post-Callan pre-Equalizer Edward Woodward, is the focus of the Public Control Department’s attention. He’s a purveyor, as far as they are concerned, of alternative facts – as well as, perhaps inevitably, being involved with an underground resistance – and it’s down to Deputy Controller Delly Lomas to keep him under control. Barbara Kellerman would go from this to the aforementioned Quatermass serial, and gives a considerably stronger performance across 1990 than in the ITV show.

The show’s roots in the 1970s are as clear as Nineteen Eighty-Four’s were in the 1940s and there’s still a theatrical element to the drama that was more common at the time, but you may well find yourself binge watching all the episodes – and looking forward to the second series out next month.

Verdict: A welcome opportunity to enjoy a slice of British dystopia. 7/10

Paul Simpson