This City Is Ours

This was an amazingly acted and perfectly written series with great pacing. Sean Bean is a reliable familiar face and the rest of the cast were excellent. James Nelson-Joyce is someone I only recognised from Time (also with Sean Bean) but he really carries the show with his gritty and believable performance. The series feels quite similar to Top Boy in some ways, but with a Liverpool setting.

It is a very suspenseful watch and I absolutely binged through it, hooked from episode 1 right through to the end of the series. I really really really hope they make a second season! This show deserves more hype!

I'll cut to the chase: I don't know why so few people have realised it, but this series is a (very loose) adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's so loose that after 8 hours we're basically up to the end of act 2, but it's still Macbeth in spirit. My guess is that the series' creator Stephen Butchard originally wrote an adaptation of Macbeth set in his native Liverpool, but somewhere along the line it got expanded into a whole epic drama about Scouse gangsters and their families.

And you know what? It's all the better for that. Lots of people have done modern adaptations of Shakespeare plots, but mixing them up with really believable modern characters and situations is a lot harder, and We Own This City mostly pulls it off.

Thanks to some unfortunate family connections I've spent some time around the fringes of Liverpool criminals, and this seems pretty true to their weird subculture. My only criticisms would be that the series doesn't fully represent the extreme poverty a lot of Scouse gangsters come from. The reason some of these people will hurt and even kill people for money is that they grew up without any and were exposed to enormous suffering as a result. There are some scenes filmed in poor areas, but the show never really dives into how grim things are for a lot of people. It would really help develop the characters if we saw more of where they came from.

It also sort of underplays the insane drinking culture in Liverpool. A lot of violence happens because people are off their faces much of the time. A couple of characters are criticised for drinking too much, but it's not really explained how normalised the excessive drinking is to a lot of people.

Anyway, this is a really good British gangster drama, and much more realistic and better written than most contributions to the genre. I think I know how it'll all pan out because... I've read Macbeth (duh). But I know that season 2 will be enjoyable whether or not it conforms to my expectations.

Not at all what I expected. Refreshing that the city in the title is Liverpool and not London. I have not given this series 10 stars simply because there are some gaping holes in the plot. Otherwise it is compelling viewing which I viewed in two sittings.

What I feel is different about this crime drama is that it is told from the point of view of gang members who carry out violent acts. The writers have skilfully shown us that men and women who carry out or condone violence are also capable of being in love and feeling vulnerable.

I like the fact that the action is set in Liverpool but warn that if one is not familiar with the scouse accent the plot may be hard to follow.

I cannot give any spoiler away only to say I wish Sean Bean appeared more.

Totally enjoyed this series, would be great to have more seasons. It is really well made, the acting is brilliant, the storyline is captivating. Gangs, drugs, rivals, love, family, betrayal, murder, all very well twisted into this series.

You watch it and know they are criminals, but at the same time you are siding with them and hope they win.

The actor James Nelson-Joyce is an amazing actor and makes Scouser accent sound even sexier. The character he played is really charismatic and kind and you feel drawn to him. At the same time he is a criminal and a gangster and what he does is rally bad.

This is the best show on Tele in a long time. Absolutely brilliant acting from all involved, even the typical Scouser were brilliant. Anti heros all over the place and some jaw dropping, unexpected twists. The writer deserves a Bafta for this. There must be a season 2 as it would be a crime if they didn't! If you watch anything this weekend then watch this. Fantastic! Ps. Sean Bean with his Yorkshire accent is superb! Typical Sean performance and those supporting him were outstanding. Where this came from I've no idea but they need to make more television like this. Worth the licence fee alone.