User reviews

A detective (Steve Coogan) reopens the 13 year old case of the racially driven murder of Stephen Lawrence, after 2 previous failed attempts at a conviction.

Coogan is excellent, dodgy cockney accent aside. As are the actors playing Stephen's parents.

I was surprised by how engaging this show was, and uplifting too with Stephen's parents behaving with such dignity. This is no dull police drama. Yes, the focus is on the evidence but it works very well.

Overall, a really strong script and cast with plenty of emotion and heart. Definitely worth a watch.

Coogan is very solid in this well made series on a landmark event in British policing history. Very powerful with strong supporting cast. Well worth watching.

Unlike the current amateur shambles that is Vigil, ITV offers this excellent absorbing based on life tale. STEPHEN is all the thing that Vigil isn't. It is well acted, has a good script and having an even greater gap, is really well directed.

Here all the characters behave in a believable manner and don't have predictable outbursts of mock outrage and unconvincing shrieking.

The pace is never forced, but unfolds naturally allowing all of the actors to have mature characters that drew you in, again the complete opposite of the frankly pathetic BBC series , you care about these people.

Top stuff ITV, you have shown the BBC how to produce good drama.

Few murders in the UK have had as much publicity of that of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man travelling home from a friends house who was murdered in a racist motivated brutal attack by five white youths.

Stephen is a sequel to the 1999 'The Murder of Stephen Lawrence' directed by Michael Winterbottom, which covered the murder itself. It's focus covered the corruption, institutional racism, horrendous foul ups and mistakes (some deliberate) that followed the case which allowed Stephen's murderers to go free. It was a solid film, visceral in its telling, ending with the suspects facing the public wrath as they left the 1998 public inquiry into how the case was handled.

Now comes 'Stephen', a three part drama series written by Frank Cotteral Boyce, which picks up the new investigation in 2006, run by volunteer DI Driscoll (Steve Coogan) who still comes up against internal politics that dogged the old investigation. Stephen's parents, long since divorced, (Hugh Quarshie, reprising his role as Neville Lawrence & Sharlene Whyte as Doreen Lawrence) are both extremely skeptical. Soon modern forensic techniques and missed evidence comes to light that might lead to conviction, Driscoll is determined to get the right results for the parents.

Any true story, especially one about a subject as important as this landmark case, needs to be handled not only with great care, but thoroughly researched and told truthfully. The recent Channel 4 effort, Deceit, set in a similar genre was riddled with inaccuracies and a misjudged agenda which robbed it of any credibility. Fortunately, on the strength of the first episode alone, I can tell this production has been handled with great care to ensure the material was handled properly from the outset and the correct narratives and characters were placed at the forefront of the story.

All the cast are first rate, and having met both Neville & Doreen Lawrence myself, I can say the actors have captured them perfectly. Their voices are almost identical to their counterparts, and they both underplay the their scenes with the appropriate measures of restraint at every turn. I must also make special mention of Mr Coogan, who really created a character for Driscoll and ensured he was not comparable to any of his other more well known characters. I am certain there will be completely undeserved jibes at him but had we never seen him in anything else, I cannot see how anyone can rate his performance as anything but extremely authentic and truthful.

This is an extremely important series, exploring the loss of a child and the compassion that was lacking from one of the countries most important organisations. I would add it should be essential viewing for every school in London, along with its predecessor. It does shy not away from unveiling the raw impact of the fallout damage the case has caused for so many, especially Stephen's parents. This production is an outstanding achievement to everyone who worked on it. Highly recommended.

This is a good tv series spanning 3 episodes which kept it nice and tight with minimal padding . Steve Coogan and supporting cast are excellent. Only gripe is that there are a few too many scenes with Doreen Lawrence making speeches.

Brilliant drama. So well done. Need to see more from Steve Coogan.