Lenny Blue

Ray Winstone as DC Lenny Milton with Jake Wood as DS Pete Ainsworth

Ray Winstone as DC Lenny Milton and Charlie Creed-Miles as Toby Anderson

Ralph Brown as Barry Hindes with Ray as Lenny Milton

Ray as Lenny with Hazel Ellerby as his wife Mags

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Generally, this drama and its performances (particularly Ray's) has been very well reviewed.

"If you can actually see through the miasma of cigarette smoke that shrouds Lenny Blue, you might spot quite an absorbing, if incredibly macho, police drama.

This two-part story, which concludes tomorrow night, features Detective Constable Lenny Milton (a magnetic performance by Ray Winstone, even if his northern accent does slip from time to time), who played a major role in the successful two-part drama Tough Love two years ago. Here Winstone reprises the part of the hard, rule-bending but ultimately honourable (in a kind of way) officer in a complicated story of murder and turf wars between drug gangs.

Though the plot gets a bit impenetrable, Lenny Blue has some stylis, classy moments, and a fabulous soundtrack. It all feels realistic enough, and for a change a tough, no-nonsense copper is happily married, though his teenage children are giving him much cause for concern.

But it really is stupendously tough and gritty, a bit like a 21st-century Sweeney. Just about every police character smokes, to the point that when they meet for briefings, it looks as if someone's started a bonfire. And the testosterone washes everywhere, which - along with all that smoking - possibly accounts for the policemen all having very gravelly voices, particularly Winstone, though this, of course, only adds to his sex appeal. Ladies, he may to be everyone's idea of handsome, but he has the kind of charisma you can cut into slices and eat on toast."

Alison Graham (from Radio Times 'Choices' 1 July 2002)

Other reviews:

"Ray Winstone's capacity to be heartbreakingly vulnerable and then suddenly turn and fill the screen - fill the room - with life-wrecking violence has perhaps never found a better vehicle than Lenny Milton". Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 7 July 2002. You can read the whole review here.

"The best cinema in Britain is made for the small screen. And the worst cinema in Britain is bad TV overblown for the big screen - more often than not starring Ray Winstone for a little bit of lovable tough-guy credibility. Lenny Blue is TV made for TV. It stars Ray Winstone as a rough diamond cop. And it is very good indeed". Martin Bright, OTV Magazine, 30 June 2002.