It’s always nice hearing Scouse accents on TV and This City Is Ours, a cracking drama about the murky world of Liverpudlian drug dealers, is full of them. The authentic dialogue is just one of the many pleasures in this BBC series, which has been created and co-written by local lad Stephen Butchard (Shardlake, The Last Kingdom).
It’s an interesting proposition of a show. When you look at what actually takes place, especially in the first few episodes, there isn’t that much material spread over each hour-long episode (five of which NME have seen). At times the pace is glacial, but the material that is there is treated with care. At the top of the crime family sits Sean Bean’s Ronnie Phelan, a kind of Sheffield Tony Soprano. His right-hand man is the disturbingly implacable Michael (a star-making turn for James Nelson-Joyce, all cheekbone and blue eyes); Ronnie’s son Jamie (Jack McMullen, also excellent) is the hot-headed Christopher Moltisanti of the gang – 60 per cent impulse, 40 per cent ego. Things begin to unravel when a shipment of cocaine is mislaid. From that point on, no one is safe.
If the series were only concerned with the grim machismo of drug deals and violence, it would be fine. But the layering of other storylines, one in particular, makes This City Is Ours a gripping watch. Michael and his partner Diana (Hannah Onslow) are struggling to conceive amidst this chaos, and Diana is forever wrestling with the moral conundrum of raising a child with someone like Michael as a father. Even if a revelation from Diana comes eventually as no surprise (the audience have probably guessed 90 minutes before it emerges), its existence alone makes for fascinating watching. Michael, it turns out, could hardly have got luckier in choosing this specific woman to spend his life with.
And, although you couldn’t make a case for the female characters getting anywhere near equal screen time – this is a very male show – what’s satisfying about the series is that it takes seriously the way that the women are affected by the men in their lives rampaging around like action heroes. Enough time is devoted to the bereft, confused figure of Cheryl (Derry Girls‘ Saoirse-Monica Jackson) to make her a haunting presence in the show – rather than a inconvenient wife erased in favour of bigger storylines.
By the end of the fifth episode, This City Is Ours had given a superb account of itself as a dense, propulsive drama with a decent understanding of human behaviour. In Nelson-Joyce the casting team have found a truly exciting leading man. And, while there are probably only about two laughs in the first five hours – this is not a chuckle-fest – it’s cheering to be reminded that this country knows how to make decent TV. Let’s hope it doesn’t fumble the last three episodes.
‘This City Is Ours’ is on BBC iPlayer from March 23