Jail tale packs a punch

TIME: BBC PRISON DRAMA IS BEST MINISERIES AT BAFTAS

Starring Sean Bean of the acclaimed Game of Thrones.

Sean Bean’s British Academy of Film and Television Award-winning BBC miniseries Time takes a hard look at prison life. Named Best Miniseries at the 2022 Baftas, the hard-hitting BBC prison drama is now available to binge watch on Showmax.

Time earned Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings) his second Bafta as Lead Actor earlier this year, with his costar Stephen Graham (Line of Duty, Boardwalk Empire) nominated for Supporting Actor and Lewis Arnold (Broadchurch) for director.

There’s a built-in tension to any series starring Bean – we fear for his character, given that the actor has died on screen more than 20 times.

That fear isn’t helped by the actor’s penchant for playing particularly sympathetic characters that we’d rather not see killed off. And here he is in peril again, making us uncomfortable, again.

Time sees Bean cast as mild-mannered former teacher Mark Cobden, newly imprisoned and confronting the harsh realities of prison life. Graham is dedicated prison officer Eric McNally, who faces an impossible choice when one of the most dangerous inmates identifies his weakness.

The four-part miniseries isn’t the pair’s first outing together, nor is it their first time around the block with four-time Bafta winner Jimmy McGovern, Time’s creator.

Bean was nominated for a Bafta for McGovern’s 2017 series Broken, where he starred as a Catholic priest, and won for his role as a cross-dresser in McGovern’s acclaimed 2012 drama, Accused, where Graham played his conflicted partner.

McGovern said Time’s two lead roles were written with Bean and Graham in mind. “These two guys have played really hard men,” he said.

“But they’re at their best when they’re not hard, when they’re vulnerable. They are brilliant actors full stop, but when they’re vulnerable, they are even more brilliant.”

The critics agree. Time has an 8.2/10 rating on IMDb, and a rare 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says:

“Strong writing and a magnificent performance from

Sean Bean make for an incredible, thought-provoking watch.”

The Guardian said in their 5/5star review: “The performances of Bean and Graham are – even though we have come to expect brilliance from them both – astonishing.”

Time has also been widely praised for its realism by people who’ve experienced the system from the inside, from retired prison officers to former inmates. “I’ve got a mate who was in prison,” Stephen said, “who… went, ‘mate, you’s have smashed it; it’s exactly what it’s like in there’.”

“From about 1982 onwards,” McGovern said, “I did a fair bit of work in prisons… doing the writer’s workshops. And I was always fascinated by it for all kinds of reasons, but I think the main reason is, I always felt ‘there but for the grace of God go I’.

“Because I was young and skint once as well, and I did a few naughty things, but I was extremely lucky. I’m always looking for stories, and the thing about a British prison is it’s full of stories.”

The BBC announced in March that Time has been renewed for a second season, to be set in a women’s prison with an all-new cast.