Anyone who doesn’t follow new British theatre might be unaware of the brilliance of James Graham, whose plays include 2012’s award-winning This House, about the backroom tumult of Westminster elections in the 1970s.
His television work so far has followed the same political bent, including the dramas Coalition and Brexit: The Uncivil War, both about the upheaval of the 2010s.
ITV’s Michael Sheen-starring 2019 adaptation of Graham’s own play, Quiz, managed to dramatise the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? coughing scandal of 2001.
Strong political undertow
The six-part Sherwood (BBC One) is his longest work for the screen yet, and although on the surface it’s a gritty crime drama set in Nottingham, the political undertow of his other work isn’t far from the surface.
As the opening montage of archive news clips from the 1980s shows, the scars of the miner’s strike still run deep among the former mining community of Ashfield, where Graham himself was brought up.
Here, people still spit “scab” at each other in the pub, and close relationships have been broken for decades.
Killed by an arrow
In an uncannily appropriate scenario for the location, a man named Gary Jackson (Alun Armstrong) is killed in the street late one night with a single arrow from a bow.
On his sleepy residential red-brick estate, it’s clear he’s made enemies – old ones from the 1980s, and the young man who glowers at him from a slowly-passing car in the street.
Diligent Detective Chief Superintendent Ian St Clair (David Morrissey) is brought in to investigate, returning to where he was brought up, much like Graham.
The miner’s strike
He explains to Sergeant Cleaver (Terence Maynard) that this was predominantly a UDM village, a union which didn’t strike with the NUM.
“All that was a while ago, wan’it?” asks Cleaver. “I know,” sighs St Clair in dismay, knowing none of this is really over.
Yet something more appears to be going on here. When washed-up DI Salisbury (Robert Glenister) is called to Nottingham from London by St Clair to assist, his reaction tells us he might know more than he’s letting on.
Based on real life
Loosely based on a real-life Nottinghamshire double murder from 2004, Graham’s contemporary script is a classy piece of work, based on the first two episodes.
It’s a powerful, character-driven drama which bakes in plenty of rich social and political elements, while presenting a first-rate murder mystery.
The production is realistic and uncliched, and full of great performances, especially the lead duo of Morrissey and Glenister.
The ever-exceptional Lesley Manville is Gary’s wife Julie, his death sending her from boisterous enthusiasm to desperation.
Great performances all round
Elsewhere, steely, Red Wall-busting Tory politician Sarah (Joanne Froggatt), her suspiciously mild-mannered father-in-law and train driver Andy (Adeel Akhtar), and shifty local lad and possible criminal Rory Sparrow (Perry Fitzpatrick) all bring powerfully good performances and distracting motives to proceedings.
As ever, it’s too early to cast final judgement on a series which is only a third of the way through.
Yet in the strength of its writer, cast and everything we’ve seen so far, Sherwood might well be remembered as one of the year’s best.
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