Introduction - One killer on the loose, stalks victims with a crossbow... Village tensions and family secrets erupt in the aftermath of a murder - explored in fine detail.
Name of film: Sherwood
Director: Lewis Arnold and Ben A Williams
Year: 2022
Official Poster
Review
This is a engrossing six hour BBC 1 series from British playwright, James Graham who racks up the tension, building it towards its' climax.
Graham grew up, in the Nottinghamshire mining district of Ashfield – he says he invested a lot of his memories of youth in this moving, part fictionalized portrait of the mining village that finds itself torn apart with historic guilt, grief and bitterness.
Without wanting to give any of the story away, Sherwood, opens with footage of the 1980s miners’ strike. Arthur Scargill shouting, Margaret Thatcher ranting, police dragging miners from the picket line, children screaming “scab” at those crossing it.
There is intricate plotting and attention to detail in the recreation of time and place in this series.
It is all at once, a police crime drama, thriller, family drama, and spy story, as feuds between former miners and their families, devastated by Margaret Thatcher's ruthless policies, rear their head once again.
But Sherwood also explores how power can protect itself, keeping the working classes at odds with each other.
There is a quality of acting from all not often seen in TV series like these - the viewer will recognize many faces - each actor like Lesley Manville, David Morrissey and Alun Armstrong, gives committed work, guided by the fluid direction of Lewis Arnold and Ben A Williams.
Sherwood centres on why a lively village character, Gary Jackson has been murdered.
Is it to do with his hatred of “scabs.” Is it tied to another family's shenanigans - or it something completely different?
Graham keeps the viewer guessing - One character, Ronan Sparrow, believes that an arrow that becomes embedded in his family's front door at the end of the fifth episode, rhymes with Sparrow and therefore is a sign that they are earmarked next for murder.
His father, Mickey (Philip Jackson) says of the crossbow man, “He’s not a beat poet, he’s a psychopath.” Graham explores the bonds and humour that keep families together.
He said in an interview recently, “I know the real families involved in these murders – my uncle lived on the street where one murder took place."
During the year-long industrial action that defined Thatcher’s second term and fractured the mining industry and the unions, the Nottinghamshire coalfields were an anomaly - the majority of miners there, continued working. “Only a dozen or so in my village stayed out. For decades afterwards in Nottinghamshire, ‘scabs’ and ‘strikers’ sat in different corners of the pub or crossed the street to avoid each other,” says Graham.
David Morrissey, who plays the police chief investigating the murders, recalls a story from his research: “Even now, 40 years on, if Mansfield or one of the Nottingham football teams goes to play, say, Barnsley or another Yorkshire club, they will be taunted with cries of, ‘scab! scab!’ - so those divisions are still being played out.”
Politics and their impact seem to be Graham's territory. His 2012 breakthrough stage play, This House, dramatized the 1979 vote that brought down the Labour-Liberal coalition and brought in Thatcher. His Brexit: The Uncivil War is a deep exploration of this ongoing divisive issue.
“I do always try to see the other side,” says the writer. “I can’t believe that’s unconnected with growing up in Nottinghamshire, seeing decent people from two sides tearing each other apart. In our cultural understanding of the miners’ strike, when you think of very brilliant films such as Billy Elliot and Brassed Off, the emphasis is understandably on the strikers and hardship. But I felt the importance of looking at this from the other side in Sherwood.”
In this series then, the investigating officers are given much screen time and ultimately respect, despite accusations of heavy handed police brutality 40 years before.
This reviewer believes this series will earn multiple awards at the next BAFTA's
Trailer
Number of SUBs out of 10 - 8 out of 10
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