Could this be the UK’s top jail bar none?
PICK OF THE DAY
THE BEST LITTLE PRISON IN BRITAIN? ITV, 8pm/ITV Wales, 10.45pm
WITH a swanky sports hall, beautiful gardens, a gym, an education centre, a fully-stocked one-stop shop and every inmate in their own cell, the Isle Of Man prison is possibly the best little prison in Britain.
Doing time here is unlike anywhere else. With only 85,000 people on the self-governing island, many of the prisoners and staff know each other – with generations of the same family all serving sentences together.
And they all seem to be having quite a lot of fun, with the place looking more like a youth club than a prison.
“The world’s gone soft, it’s all nicey nicey,” laments the prison’s head of security Margo Cain. “They’ve got no worries about bills, they haven’t got to worry about the kids, they haven’t got to worry about the wife. They play pool, they play darts, they smoke. They buy loads of sweets. It’s too easy.”
This hilarious fly-on-the-wall series follows the prison staff and its inmates, with the show feeling more like a comedy drama than a documentary.
We meet one bloke who’s just arrived, accused of hitting his elderly mother over the head with a rolled-up Hello magazine.
Then there’s Lorraine, in for knife crime, who has had a three-and-a-half year on-and-off relationship with Goldie, who is charged with ABH. They have a lovers’ tiff during visiting hour.
Goldie has decided to represent himself in court and is swotting up on ‘Forensics for Dummies’.
“There’s loads of drama,” says wing officer Armando Armelii. “I feel like I’m living in a soap opera.”