Warning: this summary is for those who have watched the first episode of Sherwood on BBC One.
James Graham’s charming quasi-factual drama began with wedding bells, strikes and a Sherwood-themed murder. Here are your notes on Notts from the opening episode …
Forget the bandits – meet the parents
After staging an archival newsreel – union leader Arthur Scargill, union crusher Margaret Thatcher, ghosts storing files in a dimly lit basement – we were introduced to Sherwood’s dramatic wedding characters. In the cohesive community of Ashfield, Tory candidate Sarah Vincent (Joan Frogat) married the manager of the Neil Building Society (Bali Gill).
There was a palpable tension between the pleasantly terrifying Sarah and her shy father-in-law, Andy Fisher (a typical delicate performance by Adil Akhtar), a widowed driver living next door. He startled her, using the gate between their neighboring gardens. He refused to wear the tailored suit she had bought him because he clung to unspecified places. He gave a loud speech about his favorite railways. Hands up if you had a “big pattern” on your bingo card? At least it wasn’t monkeypox.
Does this hat make me look like a pussy?
The atmosphere was warmer in the house of Julie Jackson (Leslie Manville), one of Neil’s employees. She tried charms, annoyed her grandchildren and recited TV phrases from the 80’s. Her husband, Gary (Alan Armstrong), was a proud member of the National Union of Miners (NUM) and one of the few locals to maintain solidarity with the picket line back in 1984. Calling strip breakers “scabies” remains a reflex for the outspoken old war horse.
Although they lived on each other’s doorsteps, Julie was estranged from her oppressed sister Cathy (Claire Rushbrook). The strike tore the siblings apart as Cathy’s husband Fred Rowley (Kevin Doyle), a member of the breakaway Union of Democratic Miners (UDM), continued to work. Fred has respiratory problems (probably pneumoconiosis, also known as liver, common among gamblers), which Gary would no doubt say is divine justice. A powerful reminder of the way neighbors have been separated from the strike all their lives – and how these rifts continue decades later.
Chief suspect? Х Adam Huggill as Scott Rowley in Sherwood. Photo: Matt Square / BBC / House Productions
Upstairs in his locked bedroom lay the son of Fred Scott (Adam Hugil), a troubled loner in the textbook. The bank of computer screens displayed conspiracy websites and articles about serial killers. He had a bag full of money, a shady lock, and a habit of disappearing to go hunting. Scott had to go to court for a verdict – we don’t know why – in a few days. When Cathy advised him to “use the time he had left,” she definitely didn’t mean how Scott treated him.
Putting the arrow in Sparrow
The notorious local criminal clan was not the Sopranos, but the Sparrows, led by the rude patriarch Mickey (Philip Jackson) and the cunning wife Daphne (Lorraine Ashburn). Their entrepreneurial empire included a taxi company, an ax-throwing range, archery (probably significant), and the cocaine trade. Diverse portfolio.
Their paths crossed twice with Jackson. The pensive son Rory (Perry Fitzpatrick) drove his minibus menacingly past the furious Gary. There is no lost love there. Meanwhile, a romance in the style of Romeo and Juliet flourishes between Julie Cinderella’s granddaughter (Safia Oakley-Green) and Sparrow’s younger son Ronan (played by local boy Bill Jones). But we weren’t worried about Cupid’s arrows …
Thongs and Sparrows … Perry Fitzpatrick (left) as Rory Sparrow and Philip Jackson as Mickey Sparrow in Sherwood. Photo: Matt Square / BBC / House Productions
The murder resonated in real life
Down at the Miners’ Welfare Club for a cup of tea on Sunday night, Gary, Fred and another strip breaker, Dean Simmonds (Sean Gilder), exchange glances. When Gary murmured the scabies, Diano clicked and threw a billiard ball at him. “It was 30 fucking years ago,” he growled. As Gary returned home from the clubs, he seemed to be being chased by a hooded figure. Cinderella sneaked home after an appointment. Did we see the terrible Scott in the dark?
The next morning, Gary was found dead in the street with a crossbow protruding from his chest. Make a devastating scene as Julie runs outside in a dressing gown detained by police while shouting her husband’s name. It’s a chilling fabrication of the 2004 assassination of Keith Froggy Frogsson, a 62-year-old former striker who was shot with a crossbow while returning from a pub by a killer who went down to Sherwood Forest.
This deeply personal project by playwright James Graham was inspired by this and another murder in the village of Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. Three-quarters of the Annesley Woodhouse miners crossed the picket line in 1984, heavily protected by London beans traveling by bus north for work.
Holy cop on the case
On the way to the wedding, DCS Ian St. Clair (David Morrissey) received praise from the Sheriff of Nottingham. Not the canceling Christmas version of Alan Rickman, but Sunetra Sarker in a hat and a dress with feathers.
Knowing the region closely, he led the search. St. Clair set up a room for telegenic incidents at a local church, filled with a glowing crucifix on the wall, only to emphasize that he was a righteous seeker of truth. He limited comparisons to “modern Robin Hood” for fear that the press would turn the tragedy into a sticky title.
His team learned that Gary had an appointment with a lawyer the day his body was found – and that the killer may have called him (viewers heard a whistle) because Gary turned and walked back. But St. Clair’s inquiry was about to hit a (red) wall.
A figure from the past enters the city
Old Wounds … Robert Glenister as DI Kevin Salisbury in Sherwood. Photo: Matt Square / BBC / House Productions
Gary appeared in the police database because in 1984 he and four others were arrested for arson. However, the accusations were dropped after the “intervention” of a Metropolitan employee and Gary’s file was heavily edited.
Reduction of troubled Met DI detective Kevin Salisbury (Robert Glenister) – on retirement, but with disciplinary charges for breaking the arm of a fellow racist and surfing the couch in his son’s apartment after he broke up with his wife. Salisbury was the one who intervened while he was a computer in 1984. He had apparently encountered Sinclair, also a rookie at the time, so it was Cage when he was called decades later.
Salisbury had little desire to return to Ashfield. But he had no choice when his boss, Commissioner Charles Dawes (Pip Torrance, always happy), sent him to help investigate the East Midlands. Memories are about to unfold and enmity is flaring up.
Who is a fool? And who is the “spy”?
It was a film about the state of the nation, disguised as a crime drama. Graham admitted that he had violated the rules of standard police procedure: “We decided to tell the audience who the killer was at the end of the first episode, which caused quite an existential crisis in the BBC.
Scott seems to be a blatantly obvious killer, but the lack of others cannot be suspected: throwing a ball at Diano; upset son-in-law Fred; and the frowning taxi driver Rory, with his tendency to pass the crime scene at a snail’s pace.
However, there is something bigger here, with special branches and dark hints of betrayal in the heart of the community. Is Gary’s death linked to an undercover policeman on the 84th picket line? Is the so-called “spy mine” still built into Ashfield? Did Gary meet with a lawyer to find the infiltrator and kill him for his silence? Was his upcoming visit to old comrades in South Yorkshire related?
We went to Scott, who was practicing archery in the woods, with his hood up, every inch of a lone wolf.
Order of the week
A little cheeky, but Gary, the wedding guest, had to tell Andy that he needed to call his new daughter-in-law, Maggie, “because tonight she’s going to fuck a working man.”
Notes and observations
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The first three episodes were directed by Midlands-born Lewis Arnold, who directed Time and Des.
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In retrospect, young Kevin is played by Robert Glennister’s own son, Tom.
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Manville and Rushbrook also played sisters in BritBox’s underrated crime style of Magpie Murders.
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Gary’s bite was a pint mixed, half bitter, half soft. We’ll pick him up tonight.
This show airs in double doses (Monday and Tuesday, 9pm on BBC One), so join us tomorrow for more Sherwood tricks. In the meantime, my ducks, leave your thoughts and theories below …
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