This City is Ours on BBC One: Sean Bean, dance routines and the Liverpool mafia

It’s not particularly nuanced, or subtle, but it’s a good yarn, and surprisingly witty to boot

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Review at a glance

How long’s it going to take Sean Bean to die in this one? Known as much for his many onscreen deaths – he has died in a quarter of his onscreen roles – as his many wives in real life, you’d think the star of Sharpe, Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings would start looking at less risky roles. Kindly uncle in a rom com. Gruff but loveable grandpa in a Yorkshire mining town.

But no, here he is, this time in Liverpool, playing Ronnie Phelan, the head of a drugs gang in the North of England. A very risky place to be.

Seriously, who would be in the mafia? It just seems so unbelievably stressful. My job can be stressful, but it doesn’t result in being “put on the rack”, being brutally beaten to a pulp, or shot.

The members of these gangs all seem pretty conflicted, their wives keen for them to leave the business and do something nice and legal. Michael Kavanagh, Ronnie’s business partner and right-hand man, is played by the brilliant James Nelson-Joyce. In love, and desperate to start a family with his girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow, who is a relative newcomer, and brilliant in this), he promises three years before he leaves. If he makes it through three years intact, that is.

Diana (Hannah Onslow) and Michael (James Nelson Joyce)

BBC/Left Bank Pictures/James Stack

Liverpool has a history of some fairly horrendous organised crime rings, from the Huyton firm who terrorised the city, to the Hillsiders. This City is Ours is a fictional story, about the battles over control and modernisation within this Merseyside gang, who have been successfully running Liverpool’s cocaine scene for 20 years, with Ronnie at the helm. For various reasons ranging from greed, betrayal, and missing shipments, they’re under attack. Who will take over from Ronnie – his right-hand man Michael, or his son Jamie? What does Michael care more about – starting a family, or getting the power he believes he deserves?

With slicked back hair and Yorkshire accent still intact even in this fully, and gloriously Scouse drama about the Liverpool mafia, Bean is absolutely Sean Bean: terse, grumpy, and delivering the occasional brilliant one liner. Bean’s character is familiar. Battles for control within a gang are familiar. I’m not sure it’s the Scouse Sopranos, but there are twists, turns and horrifying surprises at every corner. Then there are all the other kingpins he has to contend with: “Mancs, geordies … every f***ing flavour of mafia”.

Ronnie’s matriarch wife Elaine, played by the incomparable Julie Graham, was absolutely born for this role. She’s hoping he sticks around for a while longer, both to enjoy their Costa del Sol villa a bit more, but to refill Ronnie’s pension pot, too. Thanks to a rat in the gang (“Is he here?” “He’s the one with whiskers”) Ronnie has just lost a sizeable chunk of cash. Fortunately, they’ve still got the marble-bedecked Spanish villa, which is ripe for a spot of infighting, murder and family drama abroad.

It’s also a useful place to host the gang whenever they need a meeting with the Three Amigos, the South Americans who bring the cocaine direct from Colombia. I was pleased to see a shellsuit, too; wouldn’t be Scousers on tour in the Costa without it. The WAG fashion was out in force on the Costa too, and I suspect the WAGs are going to come into their own over the course of the series – and look forward to seeing how their rivalries play out while the men fight their battles.

Bobby (Kevin Harvey), Banksey (Mike Noble) and Michael (James Nelson Joyce)

BBC/Left Bank Pictures/James Stack

Liverpool shines as the backdrop. On one hand it’s consistently sunny, the light twinkling on the River Mersey, with beautiful architecture and grand Georgian terraces, and a mafia boss popping into a chichi coffee shop; on the other, it’s all shady spots and grimy squats. Hair extensions have a starring role, of course. And the fashion, oh the fashion! It is out in all its glory. What would you wear to a Christening? Probably not a lime green feather trimmed miniskirt or pink trousers with a sequin shoulder padded top, but maybe that’s what they’ve been missing up until now.

It certainly brightened up this one, for Alfie, Ronnie’s new grandson, even if the morals are lacking slightly. How did they pick baby’s godfather, the “happy” (nobody is happy in the mafia) father is asked. “Nice fella”, he shrugs. A nice fella, and a hardened and violent criminal. Seeing the don of an organised crime gang hitting up the dancefloor in a synchronised family dance routine to the 1950s Andy Williams track, House of Bamboo at the Christening bash (wonderfully over the top, in true Scouse style) was a high point.

This City is tense, gritty and supremely violent. It also has some very funny moments. “I have chia seeds on me f***ing Frosties… seeds are the new Charlie,” one of the characters proclaims. It’s not particularly nuanced, or subtle, but it’s a good yarn, and pretty entertaining, and there are enough human stories trickling through in the background to make you care about whether the protagonists live or die. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so funny, but there we go: northerners are very funny, even when guns, knives and fists are brandished so readily as part of the battle to be king.

All episodes of This City is Ours launch on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Sunday 23 March, with the series airing on BBC One every Sunday at 9pm

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