TV Review: This City Is Ours

Reviewing for BioNews is never boring or predictable; a children's book on IVF conception (see BioNews 1202) or a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a self-promoting C-lister (see BioNews 1280) is here seamlessly followed by a violent crime family's power struggles in the wake of a disastrous cocaine deal, set in Liverpool and the Costa del Sol. But... there's an IVF storyline!

This City Is Ours is a sort of mash-up between Succession and Game of Thrones (but with more blacked out Range Rovers and fewer dragons, it even stars Sean Bean as the drug family's gnarly patriarch). Hopefully the readers of BioNews will find nothing whatsoever to relate to in what follows.

The words 'violent' and 'gritty' had me preparing to look away at the very first hint of violence – I tend to take my narco crime dramas with a heavy helping of displacement scrolling – but this series did something unexpected. It created, in one small but significant storyline, the potential to say something more nuanced about the villains and their families. While the tropes were still pretty much in evidence (Ronnie, the head of the 'firm', is a family man, loves a bit of karaoke and uses line-dancing as an adorable team-building exercise for his henchmen), so was the notion of an inner life, something that this type of show has often abandoned in favour of showy violent set pieces.

Following a drug deal gone wrong, Ronnie and his wife Elaine (a steely Julie Graham) hint that their son Jamie (Jack McMullen), a baby-faced liability who also happens to be a new father, will inherit the reins of the drugs empire Ronnie has built up. This goes down very badly with flinty-eyed Michael (an excellent James Nelson-Joyce), who, together with Ronnie, has been instrumental in managing the empire. Michael, unrelated to the family, has an insider's status due to his ability to fix problems with a coldly strategic eye. Ronnie treats him like a son, until the notion of succession rears its head, setting off a chain of events centred on this power struggle.

Michael, it turns out, is more than just a ruthless gangster. He has recently met and fallen in love with Diana (Hannah Onslow), a high-end restaurant manager with a troubled past. This relationship is what gives the series its beating heart and imbues Michael's personality with moments of real warmth and vulnerability, showcasing Nelson-Joyce's uncanny way of projecting humanity one moment, monstrousness the next.

The couple are trying to conceive a child together but because Michael has low sperm count and motility they are seen going through IVF. The story also captures the subsequent emotionally trying period after the embryo transfer has taken place. Their story is surprisingly believable (leaving aside the fact that money is never mentioned because presumably Michael can fund the treatment through his nefarious drug deals). As cold and calculating as he is at work, Michael is loving, attentive and tender at home. There is no doubt that he has found his soulmate, but will Diana feel the same when she is confronted with the violence and risk that Michael's world will bring into her life? More importantly, can she bring herself to have a baby with Michael in this highly volatile environment?

The way this series has defied expectations for me is that it has chosen to foreground the humanity in all the characters, even when they first appear as stereotypical gangland types. The wives and girlfriends, for example, perma-tanned, all hair and nail extensions, as egregiously exemplified by Laura Aikman as Rachel (last seen as Smithy's fiancée' in the finale of Gavin and Stacey) initially lead us to expect the usual character tropes of a) passive moll or b) Lady Macbeth level plotting. However, instead of making these a homogenous group largely indistinguishable from one another, the writers have brought out the individual motivations of each woman.

Rachel, for instance, wants more responsibility for the gang's financial operation (she's a qualified accountant, so fair enough). The character of Cheryl (Derry Girls' Saoirse-Monica Jackson) appears, at various points, like Banquo's ghost, desperately seeking answers to her partner's disappearance. She could have been relegated to obscurity by the end of the story or given an even more tragic storyline but is instead shown to have agency and wit.

It is refreshing to see Diana, another character who could have been cast as little more than a victim, come through as more than an equal in her quest to help Michael prevail though impossible odds. Her distinct styling (sharp suits, wavy red bob, porcelain skin) subverts the usual stereotypes; her thoughtful, brooding presence is a palate-cleanser for all the grubby violence that takes place.

The IVF story was thought-provoking, not for its process necessarily, but for the emotional range it brought to the actors' interpretations of their characters. Now that it is a demonstrably commonplace treatment, it is interesting to see it enriching a story rather than over-dramatising it.

I was invested in the story of Michael and Diana and, despite Michael's chosen vocation as a drug baron with a side hustle in murder, wanted a happy ending for them. If they both survive, perhaps they could start a new life somewhere in hospitality management in a nice European resort?