Checkpoint Chiswick (1987)

One of London's more affluent corridors, Chiswick is a leafy, picturesque area boasting beautiful, historic buildings, green spaces which conjure up Ray Davies compositions and a wealth of coffee shops. It’s the last place you’d expect a full-scale riot to break out. But architect Brian Stebbings (Hywel Bennett), with his diet of television news, knows better.

Checkpoint Chiswick aired on 18th March 1987 as part of Channel 4’s anthology series Tickets for the Titanic. Comprising two series of three episodes each, with the second series following in 1988, Tickets for the Titanic was produced by Regent Productions. The series’ aim was to take comedy writers and produce a collection of plays which depicted the downfall of British society in the 1980s. William G Stewart, in his role as producer, laid out what he wanted the series to tackle to Television Today in 1986:

“Britain in the 80s is rather like the Titanic, except this time we can see the iceberg. There are problems in society which are glaringly obvious and have nothing to do with say trade, industry, commerce or economics, but we carry on regardless.”

The final entry in the first series, Checkpoint Chiswick followed on from Keeping Score, a tale of social revenge against financial institutions, and The Way, The Truth, The Video, which looked at the twisted morality of religion, complete with Soho footage from its sleaziest heyday. Written by Andy Hamilton, who had also produced scripts for Hywel Bennett in his defining role as Shelley, Checkpoint Chiswick tackles the ever-growing threat of crime in Britain.

And, yes, I’m presenting all of Checkpoint Chiswick above for you to take in its full splendour. I’m not going to provide too many spoilers, but rest assured that Checkpoint Chiswick is the jewel in the crown of the first series of Tickets for the Titanic.

Unsurprisingly, the combination of Hywel Bennett and Andy Hamilton evokes a shadow of James Shelley. But Brian Stebbings is, thanks to Bennett’s nuanced performance and Hamilton’s imagination, a much darker and troubled individual. Finding himself swallowed up by the sharp rise in crime of the late 1980s, Stebbings is increasingly paranoid about becoming yet another crime statistic.

At first, Stebbings is merely perturbed by the news reports of rioting in Leicester which, he stresses, is hardly Brixton or Toxteth. But as news of further social disturbances across Britain grows, Stebbings finds his imagination playing overtime. And, despite the very real threat of crime, Hamilton puts together a script which dissects Stebbings obsessive, all consuming fear in hilarious fashion. Starting with the installation of a high-tech burglar alarm, Stebbings gradually ratchets up his home security efforts to ridiculous extremes.

Stebbings becomes a one-man security force, but whereas Wyatt’s Watchdogs satirised the homegrown crime fighting efforts of the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, Checkpoint Chiswick is purely focused on the siege mentality of a single man. More concerned about barricading his home from the threat of rioters, now only a few miles away in Hammersmith, Stebbings’ fears begin to leach into his professional and personal life, leading to an inevitable conclusion.

Checkpoint Chiswick is a hidden gem of British television, delivering a powerful satire on not only the decline of society, but also the unwieldy power of the media, capable of generating mass hysteria and blighting the mental health of those who consume it. Andy Hamilton wants to entertain the viewer, but also leaves them with a lingering, uncomfortable truth.

I miss one-off dramas such as this - sparsely staged, but written with an impeccably sharp wit. Quality television is far from lost on modern screens, it’s just very different to what we grew up with. But we can always look back and, due to the restrictive nature of the archives, there’s still plenty to rediscover if we can get our hands on it.