Sherwood, series two: 'stuffed to the gills with brilliant performances'

Fans of "Sherwood" could be forgiven for wondering if writer James Graham could possibly conjure its "noirish magic for a second time", said Carol Midgley in The Times.

A crime drama set in a Nottinghamshire village in the noughties, it was a brilliant depiction of a community still riven by the toxic schisms created by the miners' strikes in the 1980s; and by the end, there seemed no need for a sequel. Yet now we have a second series, and I am happy to report that it is superb: Graham's "talent for understanding the human condition" and "creating complex, believable characters is every bit as potent as last time".

The series begins about ten years after the last one left off, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, and its focus this time is on "a disaffected generation" who lack their forebears' sense of purpose. David Morrissey returns as Ian St Clair, who comes out of semi-retirement when a young man is murdered; joining the cast are Oliver Huntingdon, as the troubled killer, and Stephen Dillane and Monica Dolan as his victim's vengeful parents. As in the first series, "the personal folds into the political and vice versa", and it's "stuffed to the gills with brilliant performances".

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The script sometimes slip into "earnest pleas for social change", said Rachael Sigee on the i news site: at one point, St Clair makes an on-the-nose speech about "stopping vulnerable kids from getting involved in crime in the first place". But the plotting is masterfully intricate, and director Clio Barnard brilliantly ratchets up the tension.