I decided against this one when it aired on ITV last year but, having appeared on the Guardian's top TV of the year list, I decided to give it a go. Despite heavy subject matter it wasn't as relentlessly dour as I thought it might be.
With far-right nationalism on the rise in the UK, an activist group "Hope not Hate" aim to infiltrate the operations of "National Action", a neo-Nazi organisation outlawed in 2016 after the Jo Cox Murder. Matthew Collins (Stephen Graham) a reformed BNP member and journalist for the group makes contact with Robbie Mullen (Andrew Ellis), a lonely man, co-opted into National Action, who shares some of the same beliefs, but is repulsed by the idea of murdering another MP. Collins tries to convince Mullen to testify at the trial of three other member of the group and goes to great lengths of keep him safe.
As I say, though there are some dark elements; it opens on a machete attack on a Muslim man by a white national and there are regular examples of racist language, it's not as relentlessly bleak as it might otherwise appear. Much of the appeal is Stephen Graham, who banters with Jason Flemyng, who plays his boss at "Hope not Hate" and somehow manages to keep his wife, played by Leanne Best, from leaving him even after he brings Mullen into his family home. It's also reasonably honest. It's not like Mullen sees the light and reverses his position, in court he even says that he's still prejudiced.
It's still probably a bit too long though, we could perhaps have lost some of the nuance about how hard Collins' family life is to remove a whole episode from the five-episode run. Whilst it's worthy, and whilst real actual people lived and died because of what happened here, it's not actually that dramatic of a story.
Whilst it's got good performances and is worthy to educate people on why people slide into extreme terrorist views, I don't think that I would still recommend this to people looking for an evenings entertainment.
With far-right nationalism on the rise in the UK, an activist group "Hope not Hate" aim to infiltrate the operations of "National Action", a neo-Nazi organisation outlawed in 2016 after the Jo Cox Murder. Matthew Collins (Stephen Graham) a reformed BNP member and journalist for the group makes contact with Robbie Mullen (Andrew Ellis), a lonely man, co-opted into National Action, who shares some of the same beliefs, but is repulsed by the idea of murdering another MP. Collins tries to convince Mullen to testify at the trial of three other member of the group and goes to great lengths of keep him safe.
As I say, though there are some dark elements; it opens on a machete attack on a Muslim man by a white national and there are regular examples of racist language, it's not as relentlessly bleak as it might otherwise appear. Much of the appeal is Stephen Graham, who banters with Jason Flemyng, who plays his boss at "Hope not Hate" and somehow manages to keep his wife, played by Leanne Best, from leaving him even after he brings Mullen into his family home. It's also reasonably honest. It's not like Mullen sees the light and reverses his position, in court he even says that he's still prejudiced.
It's still probably a bit too long though, we could perhaps have lost some of the nuance about how hard Collins' family life is to remove a whole episode from the five-episode run. Whilst it's worthy, and whilst real actual people lived and died because of what happened here, it's not actually that dramatic of a story.
Whilst it's got good performances and is worthy to educate people on why people slide into extreme terrorist views, I don't think that I would still recommend this to people looking for an evenings entertainment.