±«Óãtv

Also starring Joanne Froggatt, Robert Glenister, Alun Armstrong, Lesley Manville, Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook, Kevin Doyle, Lorraine Ashbourne, Phillip Jackson, Perry Fitzpatrick, Adam Hugill and Stephen Tompkinson.

At the heart of Sherwood lie two shocking and unexpected killings that shatter an already fractured community and spark a massive manhunt. As suspicion and antipathy build - both between lifelong neighbours and towards the police forces who descend on the town - the tragic killings threaten to inflame historic divisions sparked during the miners' strike three decades before.

Interview with James Graham

James Graham is the Creator and Executive Producer of Sherwood

Sherwood doesn't really fit into any specific boxes - it's a state-of-the-nation piece, it's a thriller but not a procedural. It's not quite true crime but is a whodunnit and a whydunnit. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Absolutely. I think I'm impossibly relaxed about it not quite fitting neatly into any one genre. I really think that's one of the strengths of the show and what hopefully makes it compelling.

Sherwood is essentially a six-part thriller, but it’s hugely personal to me and inspired in part by real events in my hometown in Nottinghamshire. It is a contemporary drama and at its heart are two devastating killings which spark a massive manhunt and shatter a community that is already fractured after the divisive effect of the miners' strike 40 years before. As we explore that we also examine the impact of so-called spy cops, as there have been reports and speculation - and there is currently an investigation into the practices of undercover policing surrounding this - that they had been deployed undercover into mining communities like Nottingham.

I hope, and I say this as someone who was deeply affected by the story and the real killings that in part inspired the series, it will shock but also move and entertain, and carry an audience through every week, via the questions and all the mysteries that this story throws up. It’s also in the great tradition of northern and semi-northern playwrights and screenwriters, like Sally Wainwright and the great Kay Mellor, who died recently, and Alan Bleasdale in that, hopefully, it says something about a society and our history, and particularly the history of the red wall - which we hear so much about but know very little - and the post-industrial legacy.

Those worlds are so present in the media and conversation at the moment, with levelling up and with Brexit. To set up a story there with characters that I love, and with humour and with heart, I hope makes it something beyond your traditional crime thriller under the ±«Óãtv.

What were your motivations and inspirations for the series?

Well coming from this community, places like this rarely get screen time. I don't think there's ever been a drama set in the part of the world in which I grew up. So to be able to put those voices and those people, and their sense of humour and wit, and that experience, and the conditions that underpin that community on screen, is a huge privilege. Also, the events that in part inspired the series, a double killing that happened in my community and the impact that those awful crimes had on people who were already dealing with so much, felt like something that should not be denied, and the effects explored.

The absolute irony of all the events colliding seemed incredible. By that, I mean a lot of the tensions in these mining villages from 1984 and the miners’ strike and the subsequent presence of the police, particularly the Metropolitan Police being deployed, were still felt. Then 20 years later a double killing in a normally quiet community led that same MET force to come back into these villages, and had a huge impact on the fabric of the community.

I remember living through that and being surprised by how emotional the older generation were to see those police marched back into these streets. And the sense of them feeling trapped by their history - that it was never going to stop a legacy from haunting them and from stopping them from moving on. I felt very moved by that and I feel a real sense of responsibility to protect the people I grew up with - my neighbours and my family and my friends. This isn’t a literal adaptation, these are fictional characters, but it is inspired by the many stories that that real events evoked in the community. Sherwood is lots of different stories tied together, but absolutely, I hope, a love letter to the place I grew up.

Despite the fact that the drama is inspired by those two devastating deaths within the community, everything is fictionalised. Why did you change the details of those killings and take that route into the story?

Consulting with those closest to events in my research it just felt right to fictionalise elements of their stories. Also, I think no community is defined by a single experience or a single story, and nor should it be. There are the community's economic stories to do with the closing of the mines, there are police stories involving spy cops, and there are these devastating killings, both unrelated, but at first seemingly related. There are a whole number of human experiences that I wanted to combine to get a complete picture of a place. So, I think it was the moral thing to do in terms protecting the people who I care about, and coming from that community, politically, I wanted to tell something that I felt represented it.

How have you worked with the real people involved in the events?

We've been in consultation with the real people throughout; the first victim's family in particular have been through this with us, and we have a really good relationship. I think they'll be the first to admit that reliving this is very hard for them, but that's why we wanted them to lead that experience. And I think they're relieved it's not directly adapted from their story and it features different characters.

I hope there's a catharsis there for them, and hopefully the wider community. I also did feel the responsibility that very soon, one day, somebody else would tell this story because it's so extraordinary and it felt like it should be me and it should be now, otherwise somebody who is less invested in these people might do it really badly and not engage with the community and not understand the beating heart of that place.

As you say, your work has been famously political in nature - how would you say being from Nottingham and a red wall town has shaped it?

It’s completely shaped my philosophy around trying to see all points of view, which is probably a very wet thing for a political dramatist to say. I have complete respect and admiration for political writers who have an agenda and want to communicate a particular point of view or idea, but that's never been me. I think that comes entirely from being from a world that was split down the middle and where both sides had strengths and weaknesses. I constantly feel, especially now when you have the level of extremes and polarisation in our political conversation, that it is entirely needless that we oversimplify everything and never see the grey.

Nottinghamshire is - not literally - a very grey area; to be able to empathise with strikers and non-strikers, or people on the left and people on the right - people who in 2019 voted Tory for the first time, or those who voted Labour like they and their families have always done - you have to walk in their shoes and understand them. And that's always guided my approach to writing political plays, which is probably more empathetic than sometimes the traditional political drama has been.

What research have you done?

We did loads of research - I'm a research-based based writer and I love that side of things. So yes, the great privilege was to be able to enter loads of different worlds, including (but not limited to) speaking to former miners and understanding their experience of the strike - that includes people who were on strike for the entire year in 1984 and people who broke away and went back to work. It was a real privilege to hear those points of view.

We spoke to the people who led the investigation into the real-life killings and obviously the families. Then there are the wider themes that come with the story, including spy cops. We were in touch with the inquiry that's going on at the moment to try to understand the purpose of that.

Also, the culture and the history; I spent many late night hours reading manuals around spy copping in the 1960s and 70s. So, it's a glorious mix of reading and meeting. But obviously, the main research I did was living in Nottinghamshire for the first 21 years of my life and just recapturing that voice, which again was a hugely fun and important thing for me do.

Sherwood looks at the use of spy cops, what made you want to investigate this idea?

It was in the researching of this drama. I always knew that the police were going to factor hugely into it, especially the experience of being a police officer in a mining community when you had to police your own neighbours on the picket line - that's the experience of David Morrissey’s character. So the police war was a huge factor in the story, but it was only when researching it that I started to hear these beliefs, these rumours, that the Metropolitan Police, and possibly the security services and the ±«Óãtv Office, also planted spies in these communities in the lead up to the strike as well as during it, to monitor and to report back, and allegedly in some cases to provoke and to act as agent provocateurs.

I just found that notion really shocking. Once the inquiry began, which was whilst I was writing the scripts, the National Union Of Mineworkers became one of the contributors to that. They presented their case, and they fully believe that 40 years ago, the Thatcher government and others placed operatives into normal, everyday, working-class communities. It just was such a provocative and unknown and surprising idea, that’s not yet been proven but that I wanted to explore.

I know we're all familiar with the concept of undercover police officers from shows like Line Of Duty, where it feels very understandable to have undercover people policing criminal activities, but I think what's shocking, and what most people don't talk about enough is that in real life these were just normal people seemingly being monitored. These are families, these are me and you. That's what this inquiry is for and I think it's very important. The more I dug, the more shocked I was, and then came the absolute certainty that we should be exploring both what it would have felt like to be a spy cop, but also the lasting legacy of that and what it might be like. We’re creating the scenario of people being inserted into these communities with the sole purpose of causing divisions, and it feels dramatic and important to look at.

It's such an incredibly dense and delicately layered piece, but with a lot of twists and turns. How was staggering that and structuring a thriller?

I did find it a huge challenge, a really enjoyable one. Most of my TV writing so far has been for miniseries like Quiz, which has three parts, or the single Brexit film. To do a full series and weave a traditional crime-thriller manhunt - which is essentially a cat and mouse chase - through it, alongside the delicate elements of community and the impact on people's lives and their psychology and their spirit, in a way that is accessible and popular was tricky!

I just always believed it was possible to create a really exciting, watchable, entertaining crime thriller that also addressed the sense of loss, and hopefully asks more questions about the ability to heal and reconcile. It felt like a huge opportunity and I think it's very much in the tradition of Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff or a Jimmy McGovern. And you also have to trust your actors to find that heart and soul as well. I'm particularly moved by the final episode, and watching people like David Morrissey and Lesley Manville and Kevin Doyle wrestle with the big history of this place, and the pain of it. I find incredibly moving and I hope everybody else does too.

You’ve got the best of British talent in this, what was that like? Did you write for any of the cast specifically, or have them in mind when writing? What was the casting process?

I actually didn't write with them in mind, because these people feel like I know them. Obviously they’re fictionalised, but I know these types of people, these types of women and men and young people and older people and they were so vivid in my head. I actually found it quite hard to imagine actors, which I think is quite useful because I just wrote quite freely. We did worry that it might be hard to get those meaty actors, but thankfully our cast all connected with the material. We deliberately went for people that are either from these kinds of places or had a working-class sensibility, or who have traditionally done this kind of political work. We were just thrilled that they came so generously to the project, and terrified! There's a moment when you go, I can’t believe that Lesley Manville’s going to speak my words, I don't have an Oscar nomination! But also it is a collaboration - you work with them, and you adapt based on them. It was just an absolute privilege and the authenticity they bring to these words, was so important.

Lewis Arnold is lead director and exec producer. How did you work together? What did he bring to the series?

He’s brought so much to the series. I'm so thrilled he just recently got recognised by winning Baftas for Time, which I thought was one of the most beautifully observed dramas in a long time. He brings an absolute authenticity, he's from the Midlands as well. He just understands these people and characters in these worlds and how to capture them. I wanted a kind of epic, almost beautiful sensibility where you have this landscape and you have these worlds Lewis completely understood. The team he assembled, the cinematographers and editors and musicians and art designers really understood that and brought such life and soul and beauty and scale to this story that I’m so impossibly grateful for. And then he’s also got the least amount of pretension of almost anyone ever I've ever worked with. And I know that the actors really valued that.

Sherwood tells the story and history of a very specific place and moment. But there are universal elements of the series that are very contemporary. What parts of the series do you think will resonate most strongly with audiences?

It is a show about how the past affects the present, and how the present inhibits or makes possible a future. So I think we're all very much talking about, and have anxieties around our national identity at the moment and how communities are divided, whether that's because of Brexit or because of cultural issues.

Here is a story very much set in the impact of the miners’ strike, which, like Brexit, asked communities to make a decision, a binary decision, much like leave/remain. Are you going to strike or are you not going to strike? And the cruel simplicity of that completely split communities and families and to this day. It's hard to believe, but to this day brothers will cross the road from brothers who made different choices, which is just devastating. I think an audience will recognise that in the political moment we're living through and the desire to ask questions about that.

I think there is an appetite to spend time in these red-wall towns, that we read a lot about in the newspaper or hear a lot about on social media, but don't get to spend time in and to listen to the voices and the characters and the stories that come from them. So given that our own Prime Minister and our own government are shining a light on these places and saying in a strange way that they are the epicentre of all dilemmas we're facing at the moment I feel like setting a big-hearted drama in these places will really appeal to an audience.

Interview with David Morrissey

David Morrissey plays Detective Chief Superintendent Ian St Clair

What attracted you to the role in Sherwood?

Before I read the script, I was attracted to the whole package. I'm a big fan of James Graham's work. I loved his play Ink and This House and I thought Quiz was brilliant. I mean, he is just a fantastic writer, I've always wanted to work with him. Likewise, Lewis Arnold, who directs the first three episodes and is an Executive Producer - I was a big fan of his work. I’d seen Des and I knew about Time as well, which is has just won a Bafta. So before I read it, I was very excited about the package of the people who were working on it. And then they mentioned some of the cast they were pursuing, people like Lesley Manville and Alun Armstrong and I was very excited about that. Then I sat down and I read it.

I had the first three episodes, which were sent to me, and then a sort of story outline for the next three and I loved it. I love the idea of it being this ensemble piece about a community. I thought it was subtly written, a story about a historical event which I knew a lot about. I'd lived through that time and it was about the repercussions of that time in Nottingham. I was very excited about it and I had quite a bit of time before they started so I was able to do quite a bit of research as well.

Can you tell us who your character is, and how he fits in with the community?

I play a high-ranking police officer in Nottingham. When we meet him he's being honoured for tackling street crime and gang violence in the city, so he's successful. His path is in the right place. I guess you could describe him as a pillar of the community. He then very quickly has to investigate a brutal killing. Someone who he knows from his past, who is killed on the streets he grew up in. He has to go back to his childhood area to investigate this terrible death of a man he knows and that puts him back into a community and a place in time and history that was very complicated for the community, and very complicated for him personally. He has to confront many demons, not just demons that are being played out amongst everybody else, but amongst himself as well, inside of himself. So, he's the law, but he's also someone who is trying to hold on to a moral centre.

Did you already know about the true crime events that the series is inspired by?

I had heard of them. I read the scripts and then I went for a walk with James, so I was able to discuss with him where the seed of this idea had come from, the true events, his background. It was something I knew about, it wasn't something I was across in detail. But I did know about the wider story that this event uncovers.

How familiar were you with the history and the legacy of the minor strikes, and what research did you undertake before filming?

I don't believe there's anybody of my age who isn't aware of the miners’ strike and what it meant to the country. I think certainly having lived through that time, but also how that time has been shown in drama, in some really shows like Our Friends In The North or Billy Elliot you know about it. It's a massive part of our history, that has reverberations right through to today and will continue to. That makes me sound so old that is something I remember vividly.

I was in Liverpool at that time, and then I moved down to London to come to drama school around ‘84. It was a very active part of my early adulthood. We were on marches, it seemed to me, every weekend about either the miners’ strike or Rock Against Racism, all those relevant issues… people's marches for jobs. It was a very politically active time for us all. So, research wise, there were lots of different strands to it. There was the historical strand of the big picture, which was what was happening at that time and there's so much material for that, both in film and television, as well as literature on YouTube and online, so I was able to go back and remind myself of those times. But then specifically, the one thing I hadn't experienced was how the miners’ strike had affected the county of Nottingham. And how Nottingham miners had formed their own union in order to stay in work. They had taken on the union, The National Union Of Mineworkers. I was less aware of that and less knowledgeable about that before my research.

Also, as I was playing a police officer I sort of researched him. I spoke to many police officers who were either involved in the investigation that in part inspired the drama, as well as those involved in investigations like that. I spoke to quite a few miners, but I only ever spoke to miners who were in the NUM. I couldn't find any miners in the UDM to speak to me, although I did do lots of asking and trying to find people who would talk to me, I couldn't find anybody from that union, but I read testimonies from UDM miners. I went up to Nottingham and I spoke to a friend of mine who had been an MP up there, Gloria del Piero, and she was able to put me in contact with police officers and ex miners, she was very helpful to me. James is, of course, very helpful because he comes from there. And so my research was both personal testimonies, from people who had been there, and then research via historical books and YouTube really.

Did you speak to Russ, the real detective who lead the enquiries the story is inspired by?

Yes, I spoke to a number of policemen, both who are still in the force and people who are retired, and Russ was one of them. Russ was brilliant. He was very helpful to me. In terms of procedure, in terms of energies, where you would put your energies as an officer. He was very helpful in terms of walking that fine line between a real police investigation and the community at large, and how you needed to keep the peace in a community when something shocking like this has happened, and how that door-to-door, house-to-house policing is conducted.

Also, how policing has changed, how modern policing is different from how it was years ago. So, things like being on the frontline of a picket line as a police officer compared to what you're doing now, is very different, That was important for me because there's a real historical element to this. So Russ was very, very helpful for that. And what was really great about Russ was I was able to tap in with him during the process as well. When I hit a brick wall, or I had a question, he was always available to me, in the sense of sending him a text saying, "Would you ever do this?", "Is this something that would happen?", "How would you go about this"’ He was always very helpful in terms of the investigative process.

Also, it would be important to say that there were four or five other policemen who I spoke to, who were equally as helpful to me. It was important for me to make sure I get their perspective, because I'm not playing Russ, so it's important for me to have more than one source in one particular arena.

What about the spy cops element?

I did know about spy cops, not in this arena, which is the trade union arena, but in environmental arena such as activist unions and organisations. It's an area that is very alive, as there is an ongoing public investigation into undercover operatives. It was important for me to make sure that I was staying on our story, which was about spy cops being used in trade unions at this time during the miner’s strike.

It's a very contemporary story, but there's a lot in there that will resonate with viewers in today's world. What elements do you think will resonate most widely with audiences?

I think divided community is really alive at the moment. The idea that we are being pushed to the extremes and how a community lives amongst itself, with people with very different views and opinions living side by side. Also, how we deal with history, both recent and ancient history that we live through, and how we have to come to terms with that in order to move on, in order to live our lives without the desire for revenge or animosity.

But I also see how communities and people are susceptible to manipulation from above, that they can be manipulated in really extreme ways. In our country where we believe we live in a very free and open democracy; we can often be accused of looking at the world and thinking we don't behave like that. That we're above such behaviour, so we can condemn other countries and their manipulation and even brutality. And yet, it's harder for us sometimes to look at ourselves and see that we're just as capable of doing that. And I think James really digs into that and sees it from a historical context as well as a modern context.

It's James Graham's most personal work so far, how closely have you worked with him?

We went for a walk beforehand, James is a very accessible person. He's someone who's very, very available. He's a writer who doesn't hide from you, which is great. But he also has great integrity, great storytelling ability. I think he's someone who's very passionate about this subject. What I loved about this piece is that it doesn't fit into any category - it's not a whodunnit, it's not as procedural. It may come under the term of state of the nation but I think it's about the public, the private and the personal. It's about those elements of all of us and I think it's very prescient, it's very topical. And I think it is a very important subject to be investigating at the moment.

It's also important to highlight Lewis Arnold and Ben, who were the two directors, but also Rebecca Hodgson, who I just think is brilliant. And so she was always very there for us, very self present, very liberating and trusting. So those people as well. And it was in a time when, and I'm sure this is true of so many productions, Covid was happening for us. And she negotiated that brilliantly.

There is an incredible ensemble cast in this one, do you have any favourite moments from set?

One of the great locations, one of the central locations, is the club. It's the Working Men's Club, and lots of action happens there, lots of community events. We filmed in this club, and we had this one place where we’d all hang out and I've never laughed so much in my life. And, you know, Sean Gilder, Lesley Manville, Lorraine Ashbourne, all of us just hanging out and chatting and laughing and then we get called to set and to have to have a big fight and an argument. But it's people like Kevin Doyle and Claire Rushbrook, everybody that came in to the cast every day, Robert Glenister - you just went, oh my god, they're in it as well! It was just phenomenal, everywhere you turned there were people who are just top of their game really. And that was wonderful. I really had a lovely time, people like Adeel Akhtar, people I'd wanted to work with for years and people I've worked with before. It was pretty phenomenal on those big days when everybody played, it was so great.

Interview with Robert Glenister

Robert Glenister plays Detective Inspector Kevin Salisbury

In a couple of sentences, can you please tell us a little bit about your character?

Kevin Salisbury is a metropolitan police officer nearing the end of his career. He could take retirement now, but his personal life is in a mess, so I think he wants to keep on working as long as he can to take the pain away from what's going on elsewhere. He's also on a charge for assaulting an officer for a racist comment, so he's in a bit of a mess generally. Probably the last thing he wants is to be is to be sent to Nottingham, which has memories and echoes of things past. But this huge investigation comes up and he has no choice - either he goes or he's going to be forced to retire. So, it's a sort of fait accompli really. But he's complex, he's got a sense of humour sometimes, he’s just like everybody.

What attracted you to the role?

That sort of sensitivity, the sort of flawed character that he is. The fact that he's a good cop, but he's prone to mood swings. And it's just nice to play a multi layered character as opposed to somebody who is just predominantly one thing. It was the fact that he was a sort of contradiction in many ways. There’s a sensitivity to him, empathy and compassion within, but he also has his problems.

The series examines modern Britain's social fabric, but it's also a really compelling mystery crime drama. Can you talk about how the two elements kind of work side by side, and how you found that as an actor?

It was based on two true events, these deaths that took place in this small village in Nottingham and the miners’ strike. And one feeds into the other. So these deaths hadn't occurred, then the old wounds wouldn't have been reopened.

Because the two killers disappeared into Sherwood Forest, Nottingham police didn't have the capability or the manpower to find them, because Nottingham Forest is vast, and because of the canopy you can't get a helicopter or drones or anything. So, then they got the Met back up not thinking, of course, that it would rekindle those feelings that existed in 1984. And there’s a very specific element in this, where Kevin is haunted by it really, because things occurred when he was a younger police officer that probably affected him and his whole life and his career.

Consequently, it’s an examination of the fragility of the social fabric that exists in this country, not just in this country, but elsewhere as well, and something that's long festered and been suppressed. Those within these mines, specifically within these mining communities - it doesn't take much to get a resurgence of that enmity. I remember it was a grim time, I was in my mid-20s and people really suffered.

Did it open your eyes to anything you didn't know?

Probably not really no. I was brought up in a fairly left wing, not militantly, but a left wing family. My dad was a very strong union member. He worked in television and he was president of the Directors Guild. So, I was very aware of it. What was upsetting and what we've seen subsequently, in things like Billy Elliot is the anger and the betrayal felt by those who stayed out on strike and the suffering they had and the feelings of those who didn't join the strike and felt a moral and ethical responsibility towards their loved ones. It was a no-win situation, I think. It lasted a year, people forget that. Prior to that there was a strike during Ted Heath’s government in 1972, which lasted a matter of months, but this was a year which was a hardship that was just devastating for everybody.

It's a very contemporary story with a lot of resonance in today's world. What do you think will resonate most strongly with audiences?

Maybe how fragile communities can be fractured, or how easy it is for communities to be fractured, but also how steadfast communities can pull together in very, very hard times. And how politics and politicians, knowingly or unknowingly, blight communities and their families. Ken Loach made a film, a documentary where he put forward the assertion that from the 70s the Conservative Party had been trying to manufacture tactics in order to bring down the mining industry. And that's 14 years prior to where our story is set. So, I think from a political point of view, and I don't think politicians are the most popular people at the moment - not just here, but globally - that’s what a lot of people resonate with. It’s a double-edged sword: how easily communities can be broken, and alternatively, how strong they can be and stay together, it's a very delicate line.

Community is a big theme within the series, how does your character fit in with the community?

He doesn’t really. The thing is he has a history there, because as a young officer, when he was 20, he was seconded to Nottingham to help the Nottinghamshire police. Their function there was to enable those miners that wanted to continue to work to get into the pits. And he fell in love with somebody, a local girl in in the Nottinghamshire village and that's never left him. He went off and had another life after that, but when he comes back it is inevitable that he's going to see her. That love story and his involvement with her also caused events that had long-lasting ramifications for the community. Of course, when he returns and people find out who he is he’s persona non grata because of the chaos he caused 40 odd years ago. So, he doesn’t really fit in.

What was it like to work with the rest of the cast?

It was great. I mean, when you get to my age, alas, I think I knew everybody, all the principal cast, apart from a few of the younger ones. But it was a great crowd. We all stayed in the same place. We have fantastic people coming in, you know, Joanne Froggatt, Lesley Manville, Claire Rushbrook, Kevin Doyle, Alun Armstrong, Stephen Tompkinson, Philip Jackson, Lorraine Ashbourne, Adeel Ahktar, the list goes on! Someone like Lindsey Duncan coming up to do to a few scenes, that's a bit of a coup as well!

There's a particularly brilliant piece of casting in the younger version of yourself as well as your son, Tom, plays the younger you, what was that like?

Well we didn't actually do anything together, all the flashback scenes were shot in the two weeks after we'd pretty much finished all of the present-day stuff. I just thought, and I know I'm his dad, but I think he's a terrific actor. I think he's got something special. I contacted James Graham initially about Tom and I said, "Look, this is this is shamelessly nepotistic, but my boy has been out of drama school three years, he's terrific. He's been working and all the rest of it, can you have a word with the powers that be and just see if they'll let him put himself on tape?"

And Tom did that and went up against a load of people who were up for the part, it wasn’t me saying ‘give him the gig’ or anything, he went through the process with everybody else. It wasn't an immediate decision, it took a while for everybody to come together and for the ±«Óãtv to have a look under consideration but he got the part. Previously I have thought we didn’t really look alike, I mean, there's a sort of family resemblance, but actually looking at the episodes when we were ADRing them [Addition Dialogue Recording] I was looking at me, and looking at Tom, and (laughs) yes he's got more hair, he hasn't got beard, and he's much thinner, but we do we do sort of look alike!

It’s James Graham’s most personal work so far. How closely have you worked with him across the project?

I'm a huge fan of James. The only time our paths have crossed before was when I did a workshop of a play he wrote called Privacy. I didn't actually do the production, but I did the workshop and I've always loved his work. I love Quiz. I love This House. And I was really chuffed to be to be asked to do this with him.

What I love about James is that he’s not there on set every day. Writers tend not to be on telly anyway, but if you’ve got any ideas, if you've got things that you're not quite sure about he is so accessible. You say to either James or Lewis Arnold, "Look, I'm not sure about this" or "I’m finding this a bit difficult" - he will listen and he will do something about it. Not all writers are like that, some are very dogged, that's fair enough as well. James is really, really great at listening and encouraging and I think he's just a man of great integrity and a writer of great integrity.

There is no hesitation about approaching him because you know he's a listener and I think he's a fabulous writer, I think that he writes beautifully. The interweaving of all the different elements in Sherwood and to write for an ensemble cast of that size and give everybody a pretty decent crack of the whip, that takes a lot of skill.

An interview with Lesley Manville

Lesley Manville plays Julie Jackson

Can you please tell us a bit about Sherwood?

Well, it's from the brilliant James Graham. It's semi-autobiographical in that he grew up in the area where it's set. It deals with the Nottinghamshire miners who were in the 1984 strike. They were the ones who broke the picket line and went back to work, whereas the Yorkshire miners were the ones who, as a majority, stayed out on strike. So, in Sherwood, there's a clash in this community and it's never left them. It’s festered and become a very dark, underlying heartbeat to the story.

It's a drama, but it is based on a true story of two real tragic killings. It was really rather extraordinary, because these deaths were not connected and yet both killers were hiding out in Sherwood Forest, and because of the density of Sherwood Forest, the police's heat-seeking aircraft could not find them, so it was a manhunt in this huge area. Police were brought in from all over the place including The Met, and they found these them, really quite close to each other. It sparked, at the time, the biggest manhunt in UK history.

Could you tell us a little bit about your character?

Well, Julie Jackson is Gary Jackson's wife. He's one of the miners who adamantly stayed out on strike. They are a warm, lovely couple who love each other and have a great life. But there is this side of him that she must suppress and try and put to one side because she doesn't like it. He publicly uses derogatory terms towards people in the community who didn’t strike in the 80s. It doesn't sit well with her, but she is and always was on his side at the time of the strikes and was involved in the striking herself.

What research did you do for the part?

Around the time of the strike in the 80s, I was asked to join a group of writers and actresses, all women, to workshop a play for the Royal Court Theatre in London about the women behind pit closures. So, I actually went to Barnsley age 23. We got up and went to a picket line. It was horses and riot shields and police screaming and shouting miners. I'm not good with any sort of aggression and confrontation and potential violence, I can argue, but as soon as things become physical, something shuts down in me. When we went to this picket line, it was serious. I really lost my bottle and I had to leave. I was sort of wandering around Barnsley looking for a bus at five in the morning to get me out of there. One of the other actresses who is a dear, dear friend of mine, she came looked after me. I just couldn't cope with it.

During this time we interviewed all these women who were wives or girlfriends of the men who were striking, and their support was very key. They had to make the money. They had to feed the family and they were playing very traditional roles. They had to put the food on the table with no money. The men needed the support of their wives so, obviously, it caused a lot of family friction and tension. The Jackson's in this series have been through that. You see them at the beginning of the story as a kind of lifeforce, they're looking after their grandchildren and you see them being such great warm, giving, loving, funny grandparents and then of course this huge event happens and Gary is killed.

When Gary is killed it's like 1982 all over again, it's like, 'Wham. Okay, that's never left us, we've never managed to escape that', and all of this emotion comes out. Julie starts to think, "Okay, what's been going on here that I didn't know about?"

Your sister is played by Claire Rushbrook can you tell us a bit about that relationship?

The events of 1984 destroyed this sibling relationship. They live across the way from one another and yet they've not spoken because of what happened in the 80s and the fact their husbands took a different stance in the strikes. I'll tell you a little bit about mine and Claire Rushbrook's (playing Cathy Rowley) history. We were ships that pass in the night. Actors meet actors, and sometimes you might see them at the theatre and say 'Hello, it's nice to meet you'. Suddenly, I was shooting a series in Dublin, called Magpie Murders and Claire was going to play my sister, so we just thought, well, this is this is great! We met, we fell in love. It was friendship at first sight, you know, it was just wonderful. We play these very different sisters in Magpie Murders, they're quite antagonistic with each other; one's a career woman and the other has stayed at home but we just adore each other!

And then when Sherwood came along, and they said that Claire's going to play my sister, it was just perfect. Even though in Sherwood they're not speaking and haven't spoken, there's still so much love there that they've had and still have, but they've had to bottle it, mainly because of their husband's political standing. My character, Julie, absolutely believes in what they were striking for but I'm not sure how much Cathy believes in what her husband is striking for; you get the feeling that maybe she wasn't quite as sure as Julie was.

What attracted you to the role?

The script. It's always script, script, script. However great the team might be, if the scripts are turkey you're never going to be able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Also, I know and love James's work. And I suppose, because of that experience when I was in my 20s with the strike, I thought that I know this world a little bit, and what a challenge it will be to play her. 

I didn't know Lewis (Arnold) our director but I'd watched Time. Which is extraordinary, and the cast that they were assembling was amazing. Really, really amazing. Full marks to them, they hung out for me because I was on first call to The Crown. So having me do it came with a massive risk for the team because they knew that any day, especially in the Covid climate, I could ring and say, "Oh I can't get there tomorrow, The Crown need me". It was a great act of faith.

Plus, I was doing The Crown, playing Princess Margaret. I'd done Magpie Murders, playing a nice, middle-class woman and I thought that this was the time to play somebody who's not just a socially different class, but somebody who's got a kind of unashamed rawness about her. Somebody who is just very open and honest - there's no bullshit about her.

You've touched on other members of the cast, do you have any anecdotes from set?

We were in Covid times, but we were all staying in the same hotel and it was very nice to spend the evenings together. I knew a lot of the actors - Philip Jackson, Alun Armstrong, Joanne Froggatt, David Morrissey, Robert Glenister - so it was a really nice time.

One funny thing that I do remember happened in the house we were shooting in, Julie's house. Lewis was using one of the rooms for the monitors and all of that. And I used that room as a little green room to hang out in. We would all have little chats between set-ups and things like that. We were using the loo up there as well, so one day I suggested that the loo could do with a bit of a clean-up as we've all been using it for a couple of days. The next thing you know, Lewis is in there cleaning the toilet! I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "The toilet isn’t clean, I’ll clean it!" He's that kind of guy. He’s the director of the show who will clean the loo! When lighting are trying to move something and having trouble, he's up there helping them!

Interview with Joanne Froggatt

Joanne Froggatt plays Sarah Vincent

Can you please tell us about your character Sarah in a couple of sentences? Who she is and what motivates her?

Sarah is campaigning to be the local councillor so she's very politically aware. Her political views differ from the bulk of her community because she is campaigning as a Conservative in a predominantly working-class area, a hard Labour constituency. Ashfield has a history with mining and was hugely impacted in the 80s by Thatcher and the miners' strikes. She is very opinionated and believes in going against the grain which does rub many people up the wrong way in the process. You do get to see her softer side though as we meet her husband, played by Bally Gill, and they are very much in love. He is the person that softens her hard shell.

Community is a big theme in the drama. How does Sarah fit in with the community we explore?

Sarah actually goes to the beat of her own drum so I wouldn't say she fits into the community that well because she has very different political views. Her dad owned a coach company during the strikes and took miners in and out of the town whether they were a part of the strikes or not. So, whilst that made him a successful businessman, he also divided opinion and drew strong reactions from his community because he was busing in miners that chose to work when there was a strike on. Of course, he was just trying to make a living and provide for his family but there has to be a backlash to that. I think that's what fed into Sarah's political views and her outlook on life; she wasn’t one to follow the crowd and she’s not afraid to use her voice, even if her opinions are different to those around her.

What attracted you to the role?

For all of the reasons, I’ve already described really. She’s not the most likeable character, which I love. That's a fun challenge as an actor. As humans, we’re all multifaceted and multi-layered so it’s interesting to be able to explore those layers in somebody that, when you read them on the page, you think, Ah, okay, this one's a piece of work!

I really enjoy being the antagonist of a scene as well, where you're the one that's bringing the argument or going against the grain. That drama and friction is what makes for a good scene and Sarah is so often at the centre of that.

Sherwood doesn't fit neatly into any boxes. It's a thriller, it could be described as a state-of-the-nation piece, but it's not a police procedural; do you think viewers will be surprised by all?

I think that viewers will be very surprised by all of the twists and turns. James Graham and Lewis Arnold, our directors, have done the most incredible job, they're both just so talented. And James' script is really original. Even though it's a subject matter that has been spoken about so much over the years, to me, it felt like a fresh take; based on true events but fictionalised from there.

James brought so much humour to the script in a way that is very real too. I lived in the Midlands for 10 years of my life and James is from the area, so he knows the sense of humour from that part of the country, and he hit that nail on the head. To me, that adds to the authenticity of the characters as well. He writes these well-rounded characters, and they get into some pretty extreme situations, to say the least. But because the characters are so grounded, you’re just taken on the ride. I'm really excited about it, it's an incredibly refreshing, different take on the drama.

How familiar were you with the history and the legacy of the miners’ strike? Did working on the series teach you anything you didn't know?

I was pretty familiar with it. I was very young when the miners’ strike happened and whilst I didn't live in a mining town, I did live in the north of England. I remember it being talked about a lot, and it being on the news. I didn't fully understand it, because I think I was three or four, but it was a part of my childhood. When I was older, we learnt about in school, and I learnt about it from family as well who taught me how divisive that time was in the UK. It was interesting to look back and revisit that as an adult, to see it with new eyes and gather a better understanding of the politics behind it.

I watched some great documentaries and learnt more through my research. Most of the women in the documentaries were at home looking after the kids and bringing up a family; they just didn’t have the opportunity to have a career or a job of their own.

There's an incredible ensemble cast in Sherwood. What was it like working with the rest of the cast and do you have any memorable highlights during filming?

I was so excited to join this cast, it's the dream cast. I read the script and immediately jumped at it, no questions asked. I just loved working with Bally, who plays my husband, and Adeel, who plays his dad, what a pair of incredible actors and gentlemen! When I met them together, I thought they already knew each other since they had such chemistry, but they had only just met. And both are incredibly passionate about what they do. We had such a great time filming our scenes. And they both built these brilliant characters. When Adeel came on set for the first time in his costume as Andy he totally transformed. And the relationship with Bally was such a great experience. And all under Lewis’ direction. The schedule was tight, and we had to lot of dramatic scenes to film, but we still really did manage to have a great time and giggle quite a lot. Adeel is just so funny!

So, this is a series which looks at the legacy of events in Britain's past, but it's also a very contemporary story with a lot of resonance with events in today's world. What parts of the series do you think will resonate most strongly with audiences?

That’s a difficult question to answer. Every audience member reacts to things in a different way according to their own experiences, so different things will resonate with different people. What resonates for me, is that it highlights how easily and quickly we can become divided as a community. I think that's a tale of caution, because we all know that things have divided us over the last few years. It’s a reminder that we're all human beings and, as humans, empathy and understanding are such important traits that we need to exercise as much as we can.

Interview with Adeel Akhtar

Adeel Akhtar plays Andy Fisher

Can you tell us a little bit about your character? And what you think of him as well?

I play a guy called Andy Fisher, who is born and bred in Nottingham and he's a train driver. He’s a hard-working guy, who is probably like a lot of men, in general but also who have grown up within areas with such strong industry roots, he is bound down by a preconceived notion of what it is to be a man.

Do you think viewers will sympathise with Andy?

I think viewers might find an insight into why his masculinity is so brittle, but I think that's what the whole thing is investigating, for a lot of the characters. There are a lot of quite brittle men, who on the face of it give this outward perception of strength who have been through so much. I think it deals with that really well.

What attracted you to the role?

James Graham, and knowing his work, and knowing that his writing is super nuanced. So this, for example, it’s not a traditional police procedural, he's just sneaked in these other things, all these huge elements and it’s so multi-layered. He's really looking at our past, historical past and our reckoning with that and the town he’s from. So, him and knowing that you'd do something like that.

The series examines modern Britain's social fabric, but it's also a really compelling mystery crime drama. Can you tell us about how all the elements weave together and how they work together?

It works together by giving you insight into the other thing. So at one point you're following a thriller and what you think is police procedural and you're being entertained and you're trying to work out this mystery, but then you also get a bit of a history lesson into our recent history of how we marginalise certain towns and places in the North Midlands. So, it does this really hard balancing act of entertaining you, but then also, gently giving you a historical understanding of past and injustices and not one suffers. Usually it's one thing sacrificed for another, and if it's got a social message you think, oh god ease up, but this is not like homework TV.

Did you know much about the events that the drama is based upon?

I knew, obviously about the miners’ strike, but I didn't know that there were people who were bussed in from other mining towns to work and to cross the picket line. I didn't know that the tensions between all these different mining towns were so fraught, and I didn't know that it was agitated by the government. I just didn't know any of it. All I had was a broad understanding of the strike.

What kind of research did you do?

I felt like the piece itself and the scripts gave you all the information you needed, about the past events that occurred and that unfold in the story. I worked quite heavily with the dialect coach just to get the Nottinghamshire dialect down, there was a lot of work on that and that was my main focus.

Community is a big theme in the drama. How does your character fit within the community we explore?

He's one of those people who are on the fringes of a community and who see themselves on the fringes of society as a whole. Whereas the other characters in the piece are interconnected in some way, either working in the mines or married or married to the sister of the person who lives next door. Andy is on the fringes of that. There's a couple of interactions that he has with the other characters, who invite him to his son's wedding (my son in Sherwood is played by Bally Gill who gets married to Jo Froggatt’s character.) He is peripheral to that community, someone who sees themselves on the margins.

Sherwood tells a story and history of a very specific place and moment. But there are lots of universal elements within the series, do you think it will resonate with viewers? And how do you think it will resonate with viewers now, politically, socially?

Yeah, I think will resonate with viewers because the miners' strike is something that happened in recent history and this story illustrates and explores how frustrated people within the community can feel if they are overlooked. And that is something that is not just specific to people from mining communities, I think it’s just people who feel like they're marginalised in general. I think it speaks to that and the frustration that those people who belong to such communities feel.

There's this really lovely spot in Sherwood where they're all just sat around in the Working Men's Club, and they're just chatting about that exact thing. They were overlooked during the Miner’s Strike, and they’re still overlooked now, and that’s cast quite a long shadow over a community of people.

What was it like filming with the rest of the cast?

I kind of lost my mind a little bit! Because every single one of them, bar none, I would have seen doing something growing up as an actor, I would see them on TV. So it was just such a privilege to be asked to do it, and then to call these people my colleagues just blows my mind a little bit. There are some real legends there. It’s still hard to get my head around the fact that I was sharing a green room with Lesley Manville, just chatting over tea and biscuits.

Jo Froggatt and Bally as well. The actors who are older or more experienced or have seen on TV, that was one thing, but then you've got this next wave of younger actors that are coming through, like Bally and Perry Fitzpatrick and some of the even younger cast. It was a really lovely feeling on set because you had it all.

The series also stars your brilliant Ali & Ava and Enola Holmes co-star Claire Rushbrook.

The crazy thing was during Enola Holmes we were auditioning and waiting on the chemistry test for Ali & Ava, and I walked into make-up for Enola Holmes and Claire walked in and she was on my left, and she wouldn't talk to me because of the chemistry test! Sometimes when you're a make-up chair, you're like, "Alright, how's it going?" And she wouldn't talk to me because a bit later, maybe a couple of days later, she was chemistry testing with me for Ali & Ava. And then that was it, we were in Ali & Ava and now we're in Sherwood together, so that was three jobs in a row, but sadly we have no scenes together in Sherwood.

It is James Graham's most personal work so far, how closely have you worked with him and Director Lewis Arnold on your time on the project as well?

Lewis was the first person I saw for rehearsals, and general chat. And James was there for a for a couple of chats as well. Immediately I think we all understood the tone of what we were going for. So we just quite quickly all settled into this common understanding of the sort of story we were telling, it was brilliant.

Is there anything that you hope audiences will take away from the drama?

I hope that they’re invited to the idea of change and breaking historical cycles of marginalisation, where people have felt on the edges of society. And I hope it brings about people's awareness that change is possible.

KS

Programme Information

• Episode one
• Episode two
• Episode three
• Episode 4

Related Media Centre Links

• James Graham returns to his roots for Sherwood