At the end of the gripping, Bafta-winning BBC drama Sherwood, which concluded in 2022 after reaching audiences of 7.5 million, a fragile calm seemed to have settled over its fictional former mining town in north Nottinghamshire. The show was the brainchild of prolific local lad James Graham, writer of the National Theatre hit Dear England, with Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate, and TV drama Quiz, which was inspired by the “coughing major” controversy on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Real events were the basis for Sherwood, too. In 2004, two murders were committed only streets from where Graham grew up. Keith Frogson, a leading member of the NUM, was killed with a crossbow and sword by another ex-miner, though this was later proved to have no link to the miners’ strike, which had divided the community since the mid-1980s. In an unconnected incident, newlywed Chanel Taylor was shot dead by her father. Both killers went to ground in Sherwood Forest before being apprehended.
Lightly fictionalising this double manhunt narrative, Graham introduced other ingredients, such as warring sisters whose husbands were on opposite sides of the picket line and a plotline involving the “spy cops” scandal. But how to describe the show, other than as Alan Bleasdale meets Line of Duty? “We eventually made peace with it not being defined by any one genre,” says the 42-year-old writer over video call. “Was it a thriller? Was it state-of-the nation? Was it political? Social? A whodunnit? Comedy or serious? Then we started to relax. And it made me realise I could do whatever I wanted with the second series.”
