Ben Richards’s legal drama Showtrial makes a welcome return to BBC One this month, offering viewers more state-of-the-nation musings, fizzing, witty dialogue and meaty acting.
First time around, in 2021, a wealthy female student was in the dock; now it’s cocky PC Justin Mitchell, played with real verve by Michael Socha, who is accused of the hit-and-run death of a climate activist.
Less than a minute into the first episode, a man is dead before he hits the floor. His assailant steps around the body, in time for a colleague to ask a terrified comic book shop worker:
“Where is Jessica Hyde?”
A lethal game of cat and mouse ensues when the Network – a shadowy organisation hellbent on decreasing Earth’s population – begin to hunt down the ordinary people in their way.
The series will leave the case and cast from series one behind, opening with a climate activist being left for dead following a hit and run, but managing to reveal his attacker as a serving policeman with his dying breath.
The following trial unpacks the motives and background of the mysterious and unnamed ‘Officer X’, and whether the death of the high-profile climate activist could be due to a thoughtless accident, or a targeted attack.
