Industry

Television’s least wholesome drama returned to BBC One early this month, offering more backstabbing, boozing, sex, snorting and frankly incomprehensible financial jargon.

Series 3 of Industry sees Pierpoint, in stark contrast to the behaviour of its employees, repositioning itself as an ethical investment bank when it takes on a new client, the green energy start-up Lumi. This is run by an aristo turned tech-bro, the aptly named Sir Henry Muck, and played with brio by Kit Harington, best known as Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow.

Industry

Tuesday

BBC One, 10.40pm

The first series introduced viewers to Pierpoint & Co, a leading investment bank that expects nothing less than perfection from its employees. A crop of young starters have to do everything they can to stay ahead.

As if the work wasn’t enough, there’s also the lifestyle. The drugs, sex and drinking prove just as demanding as the never-ending office hours.

Series three will see Pierpoint put everything on so-called ethical investing. Part of their strategy involves Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington, Game of Thrones), a major player in green energy.

BBC and HBO’s Industry features university graduates striving for permanent positions at Pierpoint and Co, an esteemed investment bank. Where we left off in series two, Harper (Myha’la Herrold) and Eric (Ken Leung) had just pulled off a dramatic deal with Bloom (Jay Duplass) and secured themselves new positions at Pierpoint, but not without the help of some very illegal insider trading.

The March conference, “Buckinghamshire: delivering world-leading education pathways for film and television”, was initiated by the CEO of Marlow Film Studios, Robert Laycock.

It heard that the industry has grown 15 times faster than the economy at large, bringing with it unparalleled opportunities for highly skilled, well-paid and life-enhancing jobs. Buckinghamshire has become one of the key UK destinations for major high-end TV and film production.

Set in the pressure cooker environment of international bank Pierpoint & Co’s London office, the series follows a group of sex and drug fuelled young bankers as they forge their identities on the trading floor.

Written by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the eight-part series finds the Pierpoint employees back to work as the market rips, and the grads are no longer allowed to hide behind their graduate status and are more charged up and paranoid than ever.

Across eight more episodes, the drama will continue following the ambitious twenty-something bankers throwing themselves into the cutthroat industry of international finance.

The new recruits include Jay Duplass (The Chair), who will play Jesse Boom, a well-respected hedge fund manager and recent émigré. Sonny Poon Tip (Anatomy of a Scandal) will play his wilful son Leo Bloom.

Katrine De Candole (The Ipcress File) will play the multilingual Celeste Pacquet, one of Peirpoint’s Private Wealth Managers.

Bad Wolf co-founder Jane Tranter shoots back with a rapid reply when asked what her Cardiff-based production company is up to: “Dealing with high-level anxiety all the time, probably emanating from myself.”

If so, Tranter – speaking over Zoom – hides it well. Any stress would be understandable. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, Bad Wolf has brought the second seasons of fantasy epics His Dark Materials and A Discovery of Witches to the screen, and launched two acclaimed contemporary dramas, Industry and I Hate Suzie.