BBC Radio 4, 5 March 2012
The second in a series of four plays about DCI Stone (Hugo Speer), whose
patch encompasses some of the roughest areas of urban Manchester.
In this episode Stone and his two colleagues, DCI Mike Tanner (Craig Cheetham), and
DS Sue Kelly (Deborah McAndrew) are called upon to investigate a fatal stabbing outside a local kebab shop. They believe that
it might be a case of mistaken identity: a young man Emir (Darren Kuppan) has died when it probably should have been his twin
brother Jamal (also played by Kuppan). The boys' father Syed (Shriv Grewal) believes it might be a racist attack, a belief
also held by local community leader Mumtaz (Harvey Virdi) who appears on television claiming that he has it "on good authority"
that there exists an agent provocateur trying to disrupt race relations in the area.
Stone and his team have a difficult to task in conducting an investigation while
trying hard not to offend local people's sensibilities. Their task is rendered more difficult by their officious boss McCaffrey
(Jonathan Keeble), who seems more concerned with the way the force are represented on the local media than solving the case.
In the end Stone discovers the murderer, but not without causing a good deal of emotional
pain in the process. Jamal is left nursing a huge emotional scar, while Stone himself admits that sometimes his detective
work involves chasing shadows; in other words, pursuing elusive suspects or making decisions based on hunches rather than
sifting all the evidence in a calm, unhurried manner. Inevitably the detective ends up making mistakes that cannot
be rectified with the catch-all apology "Sorry."
The plot of Demons follows a predictable pattern with a twist
at the end. What renders Nadia Molinari's production more intriguing are the performances: Hugo Speer's outwardly confident
yet emotionally bankrupt Stone contrasts well with the more pragmatic, down-to-earth Sue Kelly.
