Strike force

Emotions run high as David Morrissey investigates a double murder in a former mining town in a new drama

- SEAN MARLAND

NEW CRIME DRAMA

Sherwood

Monday & Tuesday, 9 pm, BBC1

David Morrissey and Lesley Manville lead a stellar cast featuring some of Britain's most-celebrated TV stars in a new six-part drama about a fractured community that's shattered by a pair of brutal murders.

Partly inspired by real events that took place in Nottinghamshire in 2004, Sherwood is set in the Midlands town of Ashfield, which still bears deep scars from the 1984-85 miners' strike.

Most of Ashfield's miners belonged to the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), who broke the strike and continued to work. However, former pit worker Gary Jackson (Alun Armstrong) was a member of the striking National Union of Mineworkers and joined the pickets. Even to this day, Gary has bitter feelings about his UDM counterparts, who he views as 'scabs.

Gary and his wife Julie (Manville) rub along with their community, until old wounds are reopened when a retired miner is murdered in shocking fashion in the first episode of the series.

MYSTERIOUS PAST

Detective Chief Superintendent lan St Clair (Morrissey) wants to find the killer before a decades-old feud engulfs the town again.