Review of Waiting to Get Out – A very good TV show about philosophy in prison | TV and radio

IIt is difficult to imagine a better path to true philosophical inquiry than spending time in prison. Remorse, causality, and the nature of freedom: these are pressing issues for prisoners. Time is impossibly empty and passes terrifyingly quickly. You experience endless days and nights with only the inside of your head for company. You are at the extreme end of practical philosophy, whether you like it or not. What is life for? Can it be changed for the better?

Accordingly, teaching philosophy in prison makes perfect sense. But this depends on who is teaching and why. This brilliant six-part drama is adapted by Dennis Kelly (with both the hilarious sitcom Pulling and the conspiracy epic Utopia on his CV, Kelly is an unpredictable man) from Andy West’s memoir A Life Inside. When he becomes a philosophy professor, West — here recast as Dan and stunningly brought to life by Josh Finan — is escaping his background. But only to some extent. His father, uncle and brother served time, while he found a different fate. That didn’t save Andy/Dan from the endless intrusive fantasies he was doomed to pursue anyway.

Dan is a more tortured character than many of the prisoners. He suffers from crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder – in fact, the relentlessly scrutinized, filmed and photographed gas cook probably deserves a Bafta nomination for the stubborn transformation and strange expression he makes here – and is haunted by imaginary encounters with his long-lost father. Is he that guy? Where are the questions about nature and nurturing the land in relation to it? Once we meet Dan’s father, it’s easy to see how this could become a concern of ours.

We return to the family car and head off on a seaside holiday. Prepubescent Dan sits in the backseat. His brother Lee (more of him later) is nowhere to be seen. My dad sings My Way so hard. Dad then proceeds to do it his way for the duration of the short trip. This means bullying a waiter, drunkenly threatening violence against his family, and stealing display jewelry from a store. His toxic mix of menace and vulnerability is wonderfully achieved by Gerard Cairns (one of many great performances here). This is Dan’s biological legacy.

Even to prison. When he gets down to business, Dan’s fears are palpable – he has bought some steel-toed boots in a doomed attempt to display masculinity. As he waits for his first class, his father appears – who we learn is himself in prison. “They won’t get you, boy,” he growled. “These are fucking guys.”

But in the end, they caught him. If anything, one or two of them understand it a little too well. This isn’t always the case with dramas set in prisons, but these prisoners are well-written and well-performed characters, who work wonders with their limited screen time. Good read, the particularly abrasive Keith (Alex Ferns) is probably Dan’s worst nightmare – his intellectual equal but with prison intelligence. A disturbing mix of his world and his father’s world. Keith has a surprisingly sharp handle on nonsense, at one point describing Slavoj Žižek as “the Billy Connolly of philosophy”. But his instinct for Dan’s weaknesses is dangerous.

Dan’s life outside of work is also an epic journey. It burns through relationships. He memorably ruined a middle-class dinner party in at least three different ways. But at the heart of the story is his beautifully drawn relationship with his brother Lee (Steven White). As a recovering addict and former prisoner, Lee has been through the mill. However, it is relatively well adapted; Comfortable in his skin. He has walked in his father’s shoes, and thus, does not share Dan’s compulsive curiosity about him. Lee is practically altruistic – the pair spend a night tracking down a young addict he is mentoring – but he doesn’t understand Dan’s need to see the inside of the prison.

At certain points, “Waiting to Get Out” can devolve into a superlative cliché. Fortunately, he avoids them. Is Dan learning valuable life lessons from this diamond in the rough? Not real. Dan is a mess and his life threatens to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that’s what prisoners are like. Philosophy is a rock to cling to, not as a source of certainty but as a confirmation of chaos. It allows them to hide but also allows them to explore themselves. The inmates assume he’s gay (they don’t care) and Dan doesn’t correct them. As the jailer points out; “You live as a heterosexual person.” This environment is harsh but also counter-intuitively forgiving. The only taboo is to judge others – after all, this has already happened, and they have been found wanting.

Ultimately, this is a provocative and moving study about vulnerability and acceptance. The prisoners open up, and eventually Dan does too. In doing so, they acknowledge the power to change. Are we simply helpless victims (or, indeed, lucky beneficiaries) of the circumstances we have inherited? With a combination of exquisite lightness and crushing heaviness, Waiting to go out indicates that it is not too late. We can still write our own stories.

Waiting for the Out aired on BBC One and is now available on iPlayer.