Kicking The Door Down: The Mark Of Cain

(Thursday. Channel 4. 9PM)

There’s no substitute for moral courage – that was the sermon preached by Tony Marchant’s The Mark Of Cain. The truth may hurt, but it’s a message you should never dilute. Stand up for your convictions.

Admirable sentiments, but I can't help feeling that they were somewhat undermined by Channel 4’s decision to pull the drama last week.

The idea that a television drama (even one as powerful and captivating as The Mark Of Cain) might worsen diplomatic relationships with Iran and jeopardise the release of the captive sailors seems to be a little fantasist on the part of Channel 4.

But then who would’ve ever predicted that a few loose comments on Celebrity Big Brother would trigger an international diplomatic row?

But that’s the power of television it seems – it captures our empathy and our intrigue, and makes things so much more real.

And what better example than The Mark Of Cain – a spellbinding feature film dealing with the abuse of Iraqi detainees by British servicepersons. This was a brave and brutal drama which set out to shatter any romantic and naive notions about camaraderie. Loyalty, we found out, is a euphemism.

But this was sophisticated stuff – it was anything but a straightforward moral onslaught against the British troops. Marchant prefers to work with real characters, and not caricatures – and he ensured that none of his characters strayed beyond redemption.

Even L/Cpl Quealy – written off by The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker as a ‘stock TV nasty’ – raised an interesting defence. ‘Forget what the public thinks: they’re all fucking hypocrites. They don’t care about the treatment of Iraqis – you don’t seem them demonstrating outside Belmarsh do you?’. True, quite true.

This was a spectacular drama which left us searching deep inside our consciences before passing verdict on its characters – were they monsters or martyrs? Posing dark Dostoyevskian questions it served as a chilling reminder of the reality of war and the power of drama.