Crime doesn’t pay. We’re taught that adage in a number of ways, not least in the litany of films that show crime, in all its splendour, not paying. But what about the inadvertent criminals? The ones who stumble upon an unexpected bounty? From Millions and Whisky Galore! to No Country for Old Men and Shallow Grave, audiences love to see ordinary people caught up in extraordinary stories. And the people don’t come much more ordinary, or the stories much more extraordinary, than those on display in the BBC’s new six-part thriller Boat Story.
In an Ayrshire town (so quaint it “makes Peterborough look like Portugal”), under the shadow of a power station, lives Janet (Daisy Haggard) who recently lost several fingers in an industrial accident. “My life is one big Groundhog Day of waking up under a f***ing lawnmower and being torn to shit,” she observes ruefully. Her unending disappointment, however, is interrupted one morning on a dog walk when she encounters Samuel (Paterson Joseph) and, together, they discover a boat full of cocaine – and dead bodies. Rather than turn the scene in to the police, they take the drugs to a lock-up and embark on a series of adventures that can only be described as shenanigans.
