TV Review: Sherwood (Series 2)

Lorraine Ashbourne and Monica Dolan are sensational but Series 2 of Sherwood doesn’t quite manage to stick the landing

“There’s a difference between a secret and a lie”

The first couple of episodes of Series 2 of Sherwood showed a lot of promise for a sequel that I’m not sure too many people were asking for. The first season of James Graham’s highly personal TV show was an undoubted triumph but a relatively self-contained story. Perhaps recognising that, this follow-up returns us to Nottingham but a good few years after those traumatic events, several key characters returning but others added into the mix.

Crime has sky-rocketed as a result of the post-mining economic downturn, drugs and guns too prevalent on the streets as rival crime dynasties do battle for dominance. This aspect of the story is near perfection, as the ripples and ramifications of a drug deal gone wrong threaten to swallow up everyone concerned. New arrivals Stephen Dillane and an astonishing Monica Dolan are hauntingly good as the evil Bransons, their vengeance being wreaked on anyone in their way with unrelenting viciousness, an unremitting tension permeating their every scene.

Whether pressing their corrupt police contacts to crack witness protection or enforcing their own moral code on those they perceive to have snitched, there’s something unbearably ominous in their callous cruelty. It’s so well done, particularly where the Sparrows are concerned, Lorraine Ashbourne’s matriarch Daphne trying her best to move her family on but circumstance always conspiring to pull her back, Perry Fitzgerald and Bill Jones so good as her sons and Phil Jackson achingly good as ever-understanding hubbie Mickey.

On top of this is another narrative about local politics and attempts to revive both industry and a sense of community in the area. There are loose connections between them and back to the past too but overall, it is comparatively just too underdeveloped to really grip in the same way, despite the best efforts of the likes of Ria Zmitrowicz, Robert Lindsay and Robert Emms. David Morrissey’s Ian St Clair finds himself stranded across the two stories too, pulled back into the police force he left to try and focus on youth crime, finding his work undermined by the backslide into dark times but not quite cutting through.

And whilst it is never a disappointment to see Lesley Manville, she is criminally under-utilised here, her Julie Jackson only ever on the periphery and sometimes just absent. What she does is naturally superb, navigating life as a widow, the potential hints of romance, the support she offers others in turmoil, you just want more. Some of Sherwood’s most effective work actually comes from relative newcomers Bethany Asher and Oliver Huntingdon, their complex sibling relationship singing with real emotional truth. Eminently watchable once again, but the bar is set so high that it’s hard not to feel just a little disappointed in how the final episode drops so many threads whilst winding up others.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *