Review: ‘Bedlam’ Opens Up By Going Straight For The Jugular

By Ian Cullen Feb 8, 2011, 20:29 GMT

Bedlam premiered last night on Sky Living, and the series boasts a first regular role for Will Young, who shot to fame as a singer in 2002 after winning the UK’s first ever series of Pop Idol.

Synopsis: Bedlam centres on a new apartment complex in London, which has been built within the confines of the most notorious mental asylums in the UK.

When the ghosts of former inmates begin to haunt the complex a series unexplained events get the attention of Jed Harper, who has the gift of being able to communicate with the dead.

Bedlam premiered last night on Sky Living, and the series boasts a first regular role for Will Young, who shot to fame as a singer in 2002 after winning the UK’s first ever series of Pop Idol.

Young plays the geeky Ryan McAllister, who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his brother.

The most interesting character in this series is Jed, who is played by Theo James.  Jed is related to the building's owner Warren Bettany (Hugo Speer), whose family once ran the asylum before it was shut down. Jed is related via adoption and looked down on by the family because of his curse of being able to communicate with the dead, and is thought of as somewhat of a nut.

Rounding out the cast of characters are Kate Bettany (Charlotte Salt), who is Warrens manipulative daughter, who is plagued by horrible nightmares, and Molly Lucas (Ashley Madekwe), who is the apartment block's resident hippy chick who is looking for love as well as a regular job, and is also disturbed by the strange goings on at Bedlam Heights.

The series got off to a rapid start and took on the ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ mode of storytelling by throwing you right into the action.

This show isn’t subtle, instead it does away with excessive exposition by showing us what’s happening as opposed to using over excessive dialogue between the key characters, which leaves what dialogue there is to be used to give us insights into the characters as individuals as apposed to just being storytelling devices.

It’s an ensemble cast, and the show has been sold on the fact that it means a first regular acting role for Will Young, who up until now has only had bit parts in a few movies.

However, the first episode centres mostly on Jed, who is sort of the lone wolf character in the cast, and the one person that has the other characters guessing, while they try to figure out if he is really able to see ghosts or is he mad?

Jed travels to the apartment after receiving repeated texts about Kate Bettany telling him to “Save Her.”

The first episode has assorted Red Herrings thrown in as Jed tries to get the bottom of why he keeps seeing an image of someone drowning, and also sets up some future plot strands, which will make Bedlam one to watch in coming weeks.

Hugo Speer, is well cast as property developer and former owner of the asylum, but also has a past, which will not bear to much scrutiny.

The effects in this show are well-executed, and amazingly much of it has been done with actors wearing make-up for the specters seen in the show, which means that there hasn’t been a great reliance on CGI, but what little there is isn’t to obvious to the naked eye, and doesn’t get in the way of the shows narrative.