Jimmy McGovern’s 2021 prison drama Time won plaudits by the bucketful. It starred Sean Bean as an inmate navigating the penal system and his conscience, and Stephen Graham as a decent warder being blackmailed by prisoners who knew his son was serving a sentence elsewhere. The series bagged Baftas for best actor (Bean) and best miniseries that year. It was McGovern at his best, his political viewpoint on show, but – bar a few tiny descents into agitprop – pressed into the service of a story about guilt, redemption and the flawed institutions and systems that comprise our approach to justice and prisons.
Now, in this second series, McGovern has recruited a co-writer, Helen Black, and turned his attention to the women’s estate. This time we follow three inmates and their relationships with one another, rather than with the warders. Each is a little too clearly designed as a vehicle for a particular set of problems created, aggravated or failed by their time in prison, but the essentially fine and compassionate writing – plus three sterling performances – generally prevents this from hobbling the story. Siobhan Finneran returns as chaplain Marie-Louise, her faith still moving her to try and make a dent in the mountain of troubles facing her charges, though you can often see the quiet resignation to their fates in her eyes.
