This City Is Ours: 'cracking' crime drama is bingeworthy TV

'Tense', 'violent' thriller stars Sean Bean as a cocaine-smuggling patriarch

Sean Bean in This City Is Ours
'Quietly menacing': Sean Bean plays drugs king Ronnie Whelan
(Image credit: James Stack / BBC / Left Bank Pictures)

BBC One's "This City Is Ours" has already been dubbed the "Scouse Sopranos". It can't really compete with the iconic HBO hit, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph, but "it's cracking. I binged all eight episodes in two days."

It's a "tense crime thriller of betrayals and shifting loyalties". Liverpool gangster Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) is running a successful cocaine-smuggling business with the help of his "capable right-hand man", Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce). But when Ronnie decides to retire, a dangerous power struggle ensues between his jealous son Jamie (Jack McCullen) and his trusted aide.

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Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.