Broken

I recorded this and forgot it for a few months. To be honest I was not expecting much. I recorded it because I find Anna Freil beautiful and she gets better with age. Having been born in a mining town and lived in the North of England all my life I always admire British dramas that 'tell it like it is'. What we have in the UK now is two separate countries and I have lived in both. One is the affluent UK where nobody dares to stray north and lives in a recession free capsule calling the working class lazy and continue to make use of cheap foreign labour to get their cars cleaned and their nails manicured. Then the other UK is what you see in this series. A UK where surviving is a battle as the state keep introducing penalties to drive you deeper into debt and to live on charity. A UK full of loan sharks, predators and pay day loan companies that are allowed to charge eye watering rates of interest. In one generation 'Nu Labour' & the tories have deskilled the British workforce and made us totally reliant on foreign labour. This series perfectly encapsulates both the physical and mental battles that challenge those at the bottom. The frightening thing is now the disabled, mentally ill and other needy sections of society are now being targeted and still the middle classes cheer on this destruction. I worked overseas for many years and did not recognise the place of my birth on my return. Sean Bean has always played good roles and should have had a lot more opportunities in film and TV. His portrayal of a man racked with guilt and shame perfectly reflects what a friend of mine went through when they were abused. There are beacons of hope throughout the series and allude to a once great community spirit where everybody once looked out for each other and helped each other, but as the series demonstrates these are now just glimpses in an industrial wasteland deliberately destroyed in the 80's. This kind of drama is what the UK does best and sits nicely with the likes of Boys from the Blackstuff, Kes & I, Daniel Blake.

This is not a perfect series; it all adds up in the end, but each episode is devoted to a different character and plot line, and some of those slip in to following episodes. The playing of the priest by Sean Bean is as natural a performance that you will see anywhere. Bean plays a maverick of a priest with unconventional approaches and attitudes to religion and a very chatty way of delivering the sermon and the mass. This is a priest, though, with a past; a past of the ordinary red blooded male who becomes a priest after he has sewn his wild oats and he questions the faith and whether he is fit enough to even be a priest. His demons attack him every time he performs the Eucharist - if perform is the right word - and images from his past flood through his mind every time he takes the piece of bread before he turns it into Christ. The first episode tells you what the whole series is about when a character is found 'borrowing money' from the till of her employer just to feed her kids. Then we have a scene at the Social Security office, after she is fired, which we have seen in films by Ken Loach and Tony Garnet but we go a little further in this story. The performances are generally excellent and played for realism but everything seemed to be blamed on the southerners. Apart from a black family from the West Indies all the cast were 'northerners' but why did they have to have the big bad bully of a bookie who makes all the money from his slot machines played by a 'southerner' - a cockney? It's as if everything is blamed on the south east of the country - the priest says this in one of his sermons in the final episode - and sometimes the script takes a heavy hammer to the subject when a more subtle approach might have been more acceptable; I mean I've seen tally men in Manchester fleecing the poor housewife who's run out of money but the whole piece is very highly recommended, nonetheless, and very watchable with beautiful music and songs by Nina Simone and Ray Davies. The last thing I would say about this series is that it is very difficult to work out if it is pro or anti Catholic or even religion; the priest is a good man and does good work and where would we be without the work of the church but they preach to us telling us that there is a God - or a god - and it's as if they help us in the community and expect us to believe. The same dilemma is in the excellent British movie The Singer not the Song with John Mills and Dirk Bogarde.

This drama is amazing- the writing, the actors,the story line and interweaving of the the theme in the Communion and in the characters lives. So many dramas on T V lack originality and passion but this has both in full measure. It is intense and completely engaging.. The writing is exquisite and the theme music complements the script beautifully.

Sean Bean inhabits the character of the priest- his humanity and spirituality encourages a desire to reconnect with faith at its most meaningful level. He portrays a tortured but beautiful soul. He deserves an accolade for this part along with Jimmy MGovern- one of, if not the best writer and social commentators of our time.

I actually disagree with some of the other reviewers as I in my opinion this was a great piece of writing by Jimmy McGovern. It dealt with a lot of very relevant issues in today's society and reduced me to tears at the end. It was very gritty, heartfelt and highlighted some of our human dilemmas really well. The acting was also superb Sean Bean played the priest so convincingly and all the other characters were so good too. A very enjoyable piece of work, thought provoking and poignant. My husband and I loved it and hope they will make another series.

Broken was a gutsy series. It dramatised big themes—conscience, guilt, shame—and, with powerful writing and performances, told big stories about the Church, poverty and abuse. It's made for bitter viewing at times but even at its toughest, there's been a lit candle glowing determinedly at its centre.

Amen, Father Michael, you wonderful priest. And amen, Sean Bean, you wonderful actor.