You know, I've been searching my whole life for a real hero. Someone I can look to for a lead, to respect and aspire to, whose qualities I can emulate and synthesise into my own modus operandi. Only thing is, having found him, I now only have to come to terms with his fictional nature.
Gene Hunt. Gene Hunt is my hero.
Think about it! As characters, we're not too dissimilar. Gruff, rude men who spend a fair amount of time in the pub with a close knit team of friends and colleagues especially after a job. The Coach & Horses is my version of The Railway Arms. We both love our vehicles, although the Dawes doesn't quite have the same impact as the Quattro(!)
A no-nonsense approach to the job brings us together as well, with our love of duty, and also being an "old school maverick", where not a week goes by at Spamcroft without Madam Director reminding me that the "affected school" of church music is no longer the status quo and being likened to a "fifty year old man" when I sing the lower octave springs swiftly to mind. I'm beginning to wonder whether Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham been watching my life? Ok, granted that Gene's not autistic, but still...
You can imagine that first fateful day, when Gene was created...
"Right, we need to think about this. We need this guy to be set in his ways, not so much reluctant but pretty much ignorant to change...He's the boss, but he still throws his weight around to prove it..."
'Well, this kid in Derby seems to be our man! Uncaringly offensive, no respect for any authority but his own, likes to push his mates around a bit. Sounds a bit more northern than the rest do as well'
"Perfect! We'll take what we like and, and errr, yeah, make him a copper...drinker and smoker...make him a bit racist, sexist, anything else ending in ist we can shoehorn in, and take it from there. Oh yeah, let's make him Mancunian. Get Phil Glenister in on it as well. Genius."
Ok, it probably didn't go quite like that, but you get the gist.
Just think about it though. Who am I? I am the Captain. I didn't just pull my twitter name out of my arse you know. The Captain, The Doctor, the Drum and The Bishop all together are our very own A-Division, CID, whatever. I refer to my house as Castle Pebblez, my room, the front parlour, is my Kingdom, a little place for me to call home. Nobody ever waltzes in playing King of the Jungle, I can tell you. In the light of the finale of Ashes to Ashes, we discover that the 'Genieverse' is indeed his creation. A whole world constructed around the indestructibility of Gene's Soul/personality/spirit, his sheer strength of will. A bubble set against the maelstrom of the cosmos, which basically is pretty much how I see my world! My lack of perception of 'the outside' is always surprising, even to me still! Where people go once they leave my line of sight is a mystery, even if I know where they live, or if they're off to a different pub or bar, or I leave them. As far as I'm concerned right now, sitting in the living room, is that outside of the house isn't real, the street's a figment of my imagination, and Norwich is a figment of my imagination. The rest of the world? A fever dream. It helps me cope with my life, just like his world helps himself (and also others) cope with death. The Gene Genie looks after his own, like I try to.
And through all that bullshit, through all that swagger, I'm just a skinny kid who just needs fattening up.
Now the series has come crashing to a spectacular end, where does Gene go from here? Well, as we saw, he gets another dying DI from the 21st century to look after, and probably another round with that Hell-Hound Keats. You watch it again, Keats doesn't quite break him. Shattered, maybe but not broken. The way gene gets taken apart is nothing short of heartbreaking, but watching him build it all back again is inspiring. "Still a bit of boyish defiance? Magic." A sterling performance by all involved. I've never cared so much about fictional characters before, people that I know aren't really real. Or maybe their character isn't fictional? The crux of the matter is that these 'characters' themselves are real, but the situations and so on are the fictional element, even though both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are set against historical backgrounds ('83 election in Ashes series 3, for example), and this is what has made it so gripping.
What about this side of the tube though? People will look for another Gene Hunt, another cult figure to hold on to who's out of this world. Me? Won't have to. As long as I hold on to myself, the Gene Genie's always with me. I'm everywhere, Bolly. I was needed, and I was there.
My tribute? This post. The attitude. The dated wardrobe. The lingo. I won't have to try hard for it to sink in, because half of it's already here. As long as when I die, Gene Hunt's my Choirmaster in chorister Limbo, I can pass on a happy man. Or maybe I could be that Choirmaster. Is it just me, or am I talking in another dimension?
