You can probably forgive Jimmy McGovern – the BAFTA-winning writer behind such unrelenting gut-punch dramas as Cracker, Hillsborough and The Street – for not being overly keen on making a follow-up to his 2021 prison drama Time.
The three-part series told the story of Sean Bean’s teacher Mark, sentenced to four years after killing a man in a drink-driving incident, and the respected-but-compromised prison guard (Stephen Graham) he meets once inside. It managed to be both painfully grey yet remarkably gripping: drama hewn from the tedium and the terror of everyday prison life.
