TCoal is the thing. James Graham’s first series of Sherwood was based on his experience growing up in a mining village in Nottinghamshire, where people and culture were shaped first by their shared experience of working the coalfields, and then, in the 1980s, by strikes against (or not) mine closures and the end of industry. The original series was a portrait of the state of the nation through two murder mysteries. His return to the village comes nearly a decade later, when, as the archive news footage and headlines at the start of the new six-part series remind us, a rise in gang-related violence had earned the city the nickname “Shottingham.”
In Sherwood’s second film, the old divisions remain intact, but the more pressing issue is how to deal with a generation disaffected by a community that no longer has the sense of purpose its parents and grandparents had, and nothing to unite them around. This time, the issue is brought to the fore through the murder of a young man, which brings Ian St. Clare (David Morrissey) out of “retirement” – he leaves the police force for a crime prevention role and becomes the local anti-violence czar – and Daphne (Lorraine Ashbourne, who joins the kingdom after spending much of the original series behind the scenes) the feared matriarch of the Sparrow clan, back into the highly criminal world. Her son Ronan (Bill Jones) is a witness to the murder. The dead man’s parents, Anne and Roy Branson (Monica Dolan, looking grief-stricken and terrified, with Stephen Dillane stalking behind her), are heads of rival crime families and are now relentlessly bent on revenge.
The killer is Ryan Bottomley (Oliver Huntingdon), a troubled young man in his 20s who has been forced to isolate himself from his family – his stepmother Pam (Charlene White) and sister Steffy (Bethany Asher), who now live with Pam’s brother Dennis (David Harewood) – and they become tragically embroiled in a terrifying case that unfolds with the precision, gravity and inevitability of a Greek tragedy. So too is Ian’s replacement on the police force, DCS Harry Summers (Michael Balogun), who is investigating Branson’s murder but is clearly being consumed by the trauma of his past.
All of this points against the possibility of reopening the local mines. To most, this would be a setback, potentially reopening wounds that were only just beginning to heal. But according to the businessman spearheading the campaign, Samuel Warner (Robert Emms), and his father Franklin (Robert Lindsay, in case you need a reminder that Graham is Alan Bleasdale’s heir), it’s a life-changing chance to revitalize the area.
Everything that made Sherwood so great in the first place is still here (including Lesley Manville returning as the widowed Julie Jackson). The personal folds into the political, the political folds into the personal, the particular world the writer knows in her bones becomes universal and compelling to everyone, and it all seems to happen naturally, unadorned, and brutally convincingly. This is simply because you know at almost every moment that these people, these characters, whom Grahame has created with love, care, and talent, are going to think, talk, and act this way. There are occasional forays into propaganda (notable is an awkward speech about underinvestment in youth and the resulting recidivism), and a scene between Dennis and the traumatized detective Summers about the lost treasure feels forced, but this is quibbling at its finest (or its worst) level.
Like the original, it’s chock full of great performances, with veteran actors like Manville, Morrissey and Ashbourne as flawless as ever, and newcomers seamlessly joining them, from big names like Harewood, Dolan and Dillane to relative newcomers like Huntingdon, who radiates a mix of pain, desire and dangerous rage that has the audience dreading every flaming moment.
In some ways, this feels more timely than the first Sherwood, even though the original resonated deeply. This time, you don’t need to remember specific events like the miners’ strike (which for many feels like ages ago, believe it or not). The latest work resonates with our growing contemporary anxieties about community fragmentation, alienation, unemployment, poverty and malicious actors rushing to fill the void left by all manner of unmet needs. We live in times of anxiety. The new Sherwood looks at how and why we got there. Here’s hoping Julie will try to answer our questions again.
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