James Graham is that most unusual of things – a leading British playwright who grew up working class. He writes with empathy and understanding about the working-class communities and people he portrays.
Sherwood series 1 (2022) depicted a former mining village in Nottinghamshire where the scars, resentments and shadows of the 1984 miners’ strike still fester and wreak havoc 40 years on.
Many miners in the area refused to join the strike led by Arthur Scargill’s National Union of Mineworkers and were picketed by miners from Yorkshire and elsewhere, including their own area. The ensuing lethal, decades-old hatreds, bitterness and enmities were the series theme.
In series two, we return to the same village to witness another consequence of the 1984 strike and the mine closures – the economic and social devastation that blighted these formerly tight-knit, purposeful communities.
Into the void created by the pit closures come drugs pushed by criminal gangs eager to snare a new generation of workless, disillusioned young people as both users and distributors.
It is a fast-moving series, the body count is high, the drama unrelenting and the shocks keep coming as two crime families
slug it out to the end. The police and local people are pulled in as the final threads holding this community together threaten to unravel.
And here we find Stephie Bottomley (Bethany Asher), a young woman with Down syndrome, who finds herself at the tragic heart of these events.
Readers yet to see the series may wish to jump to Subtle and Genuine, as the next section contains spoilers.
The plot (warning: spoilers)
Stephie and her older brother Ryan (Oliver Huntingdon) are being brought up by their good-hearted adoptive mother Pam (Sharlene Whyte) and Pam’s equally good-hearted brother Denis (David Harewood).
Ryan, devoted to his sister but on the wrong side of the tracks and mixed up in gangs and drugs, commits a senseless murder, for which he goes to jail.
From here, we see Stephie drawn into challenging, morally complex situations. Her adoptive parents are shot dead by relatives of the young man killed by Ryan, despite not being involved with the murder. She witnesses these killings.
At the end of the episode, we see a pitchfork go into the back of one of the killers as he prepares to leave the scene.
We later discover this was wielded by Stephie, who smiles sweetly at detectives comforting her – they are unaware she has just killed someone.
Stephie’s brother then arranges for his friends to “look after” her in the family home to prevent her being put into care while he serves his prison sentence.
The friends are from the drugs world and a form of cuckooing ensues as the house becomes a drugs production and distribution point. But it is not straightforward – Stephie is knowing and holds her own to some extent in the house.
She remains loyal to her brother, while aware of his shortcomings. The brother’s friends know her and are not simply exploitative.
Subtle and genuine
And this is what stands out – the subtlety and complexity of the role and character of Stephie Bottomley.
She is actively instrumental in the development of a number of plot areas, rather than a static character around whom things happen. Like just about everyone in the series, she is morally complicated, neither straightforwardly bad nor good.
James Graham shows his quality as a writer by not succumbing to stereotypes of sweetness and/or vulnerability in his portrayal of a character with Down syndrome.
And Asher captures brilliantly the mind of Stephie Bottomley, a young woman who reacts with power, guile and strength to the devastating events that engulf her.
