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.
British tennis icon Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Wilderness) made headlines with a scandalous divorce from Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland, Fifteen-Love). Now, the two have decided to keep the rumour mill turning by spending a summer together at the coastal estate of Nevile’s aunt, Lady Tressilian (Anjelica Huston, The Addams Family). To make things even messier, Nevile’s new wife, Kay Elliott (Mimi Keene, Sex Education) is also there.
Having followed the fallout of a local murder that reignited buried tensions dating back to the miners’ strike of the 1980s, James Graham led the second series of his drama into gang related territory, to both critical and viewer acclaim.
“This second series may look, at first glance, like your typical crime drama,” wrote Chris Bennion in The Telegraph, “but its exceptional grasp of people and place sets it apart.”
Series one of the RTS Award-winning drama saw two murders tear apart a Nottinghamshire mining village, revealing tensions that had been dormant since 1984. The miners who were on strike and those who crossed the picket line were still at odds four decades later.
When a union man was killed by an arrow, more killings followed in its path as the community unravelled.
The first series, which concluded yesterday, launched to over six million viewers.
It followed two shocking murder investigations which shatter the community of Sherwood, a Nottinghamshire village still divided by a Miners’ Strike that took place three decades before.
It is writer Graham’s most personal work, having been inspired by real events that occurred in his own home Nottinghamshire mining village.
Inspired by real life events, the true crime thriller looks at post-Brexit Britain's social and political landscape.
The six-part drama is inspired by real-life events and takes place in the Nottinghamshire mining village where Graham grew up.
An already fractured community is completely torn apart when two tragic and unexpected killings lead to a massive manhunt to find the person responsible.
Suspicion and antipathy begin to seep into the town, straining relationships between lifelong neighbours and towards the police forces.
The killings threaten to reignite historic divisions sparked during the miners strike three decades before.
Set in the mining village where Graham grew up, the contemporary series will follow a fractured community rocked by two shocking murders.
Inspired by real events, the rife suspicion around the tragic murders threatens to aggravate historic divisions that have existed between families since the Miners’ Strike in the 80s.
