A Study In Terror

Four British muslims join Islamic State in peter Kosminsky’s gripping new drama

- Ian MacEwan

With its depiction of beatings, beheadings and dead babies in a bombed hospital, writer-director Peter Kosminsky’s four-part drama, The State, about British Muslims fighting for Islamic State in Syria is sure to provoke heated debate about the war on terror.

Not least because the four Brits it follows to Syria are all highly relatable characters – something Kosminsky makes no apology for.

‘I don’t personally think we do any service to those who’ve suffered at the hands of ISIS by pretending that the people who go over there are all clinically insane,’ explains Kosminsky. ‘It’s easy to say that, but unfortunately it’s not true.’

Based on extensive research into real-life cases, The State follows two men and two women as they leave their lives in the UK behind them to join ISIS in war-torn Raqqa.