Time (Jimmy McGovern prison drama)

[Bazooka]

Probably the best acting I've seen on anything in recent years, all the performances were great, but Bean and Graham were phenomenal. Bean played the naive and reduced to an almost child like state wonderfully, and Graham playing stern so well but with a constant inner turmoil.

[Brundle-Fly]

Finished this last night. Something in my eye

Spoiler alert

. (three pool balls in a sock)

[close]

. Bean and Graham, brilliant, but I must echo that the whole cast was superb. (especially the younger cons)  To keep up that intensity of performance in that miserable environment must've been exhausting for everybody, director & crew included.  It reminded me of Buried (2003), the Lennie James prison drama.

Jimmy McGovern really is a national treasure. He just has this knack to put my emotions through the wringer. If you enjoyed this (and The Accused (2012), and Broken (2017), I highly recommend investigating/ revisiting The Street. (2006-09) That drama really puts your stomach in knots.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Which prison did they film it in?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Finished this last night. Something in my eye

Spoiler alert

. (three pool balls in a sock)

[close]

. Bean and Graham, brilliant, but I must echo that the whole cast was superb. (especially the younger cons)  To keep up that intensity of performance in that miserable environment must've been exhausting for everybody, director & crew included.  It reminded me of Buried (2003), the Lennie James prison drama.

Jimmy McGovern really is a national treasure. He just has this knack to put my emotions through the wringer. If you enjoyed this (and The Accused (2012), and Broken (2017), I highly recommend investigating/ revisiting The Street. (2006-09) That drama really puts your stomach in knots.

Yeah, I've got the Cracker box set on dvd and might break out the Hillsbrough one with Robert Carlisle as a chaser.

[Brundle-Fly]

Loved Cracker!! I've realised the recurring motifs in McGovern's work seem to be addiction, guilt, Catholicism, pride before a fall, and noisy family breakfast scenes. "Hey, mam! Where did yer put me P.E. kit?"

[shiftwork2]

My expectations were sky high and that still caught me off guard.  Never been a massive fan of Beanie but my goodness what a performance.  Mark was real (although the resemblance to Mark E Smith in craggy phase did pull me out occasionally).

Best bit of telly since The Virtues.

[Sebastian Cobb]

A bit me and the guy on another forum who did jail agreed was excellent was how

Spoiler alert

the teaching literacy thing could've easily slipped into cliche where he ends up teaching all the illiterate lags how to read, but instead just ended up helping the one bloke who quietly asked him

[close]

.

Also recognised some of the cast and did some poking about on imdb, and in the middle of all that found out Stephen Graham's wife in the series is his actual wife, and was also in This is England '86. Aww #powercouple.

[shiftwork2]

I had two wince moments and that was the first, and as you point out I'm glad it stayed limited to what you describe.  The second was

Spoiler alert

the conference, which appeared at first sight to be a series-wrecking opportunity for absconding due to assumptions made about a middle-class teacher in prison, but which turned out to be a fairly minor plot point about Mark's refusal to submit to the hierarchy and take an (interrupted) beating.

[close]

Handled really well by McGovern.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had two wince moments and that was the first, and as you point out I'm glad it stayed limited to what you describe.  The second was

Spoiler alert

the conference, which appeared at first sight to be a series-wrecking opportunity for absconding due to assumptions made about a middle-class teacher in prison, but which turned out to be a fairly minor plot point about Mark's refusal to submit to the hierarchy and take an (interrupted) beating.

[close]

Handled really well by McGovern.

That was great as well

Spoiler alert

none of Kav being a saviour and fending the guys off, just telling them to pack it in, and the implication that Kav owed them doing the rest

[close]

[holyzombiejesus]

"Break his bones! Break his bones!"

Has Stephen Graham ever played a character who doesn't have a grim-as-fuck ending?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Has Stephen Graham ever played a character who doesn't have a grim-as-fuck ending?

I love how he's gone from being Al Capone in a HBO production to perfectly playing a specific type of 'troubled man' who keeps you on-edge because you don't know whether he's going to burst into tears or kick fuck out of you.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I love how he's gone from being Al Capone in a HBO production to perfectly playing a specific type of 'troubled man' who keeps you on-edge because you don't know whether he's going to burst into tears or kick fuck out of you.

The first episode of The Virtues is incredibly uncomfortable for exactly that reason. You don't know who this man is: a violent pub maniac or a vulnerable lost soul? Both? And if so, which way is he going to turn?

Stephen Graham and Shane Meadows have an uncanny knack for capturing that awful, sickening sense of toxic masculine dread.

[jobotic]

I never got all the way through the fist episode of The Virtues as my state of mind at the time meant I found that scene in the pub unbearably tense. I will watch it one day.

He did a story time for CBeebies that was tense to watch too!

[shiftwork2]

All episodes of Accused are currently on something called Acorn TV which has a free week's trial.  The Graham / Bean (Tracie's Story) is a stand-out but all of them are excellent, and Time is a natural progression of its themes.