Stephen Graham plays Joseph, a Liverpool widower whose ex-partner spirits their son to Australia without warning. Drunk and suicidal, he abandons his job, boards an Irish ferry and fetches up in a decrepit boarding house run by the kindly Michael (Frank Laverty) and his sharp-tongued wife Anna (Helen Behan). Joseph’s arrival stirs up long-buried memories of the Christian Brothers’ home where he and his older sister were raised, and where he was repeatedly raped by the caretaker.
Across four feature-length chapters, Meadows and co-writer Jack Thorne peel back decades of shame. Flashbacks to 1980s care homes are shot on grainy 16 mm, the camera hovering inches from boys’ faces as they recite prayers before being led away. PJ Harvey’s keening guitar score bleeds through scenes, never telling you how to feel, only marking time like a bruise. Niamh Algar’s Dinah, Michael’s adopted daughter, carries her own secret: she is the child of one of the abusers, conceived in the same building where Joseph was tortured. Their hesitant bond is built on shared silence, not catharsis.
The final episode lands on no courtroom victory, only the quiet moment when Joseph, now sober, watches his son play football on a phone video sent from the other side of the world and decides, for today, to stay alive.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2019
Created by: Shane Meadows
Writer(s): Jack Thorne, Shane Meadows
Producer(s): Nickie Sault, Katie Bleakley
Cinematography: Nick Gillespie
Music: PJ Harvey
Main Cast
Stephen Graham as Joseph
Niamh Algar as Dinah
Helen Behan as Anna
Frank Laverty as Michael
Mark O'Halloran as Craigy
Deirdre Donnelly as Susan
James Nelson-Joyce as Ryan
Liam Carney as Damon (Nomad)
Niamh Cusack as Janine
Juliet Ellis as Debbie
Jermaine Liburd as David
Shea Michael Shaw as Shea
