Even the criminals don't like Labour's early release scheme in this dark saga: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews This City Is Ours

Published: 18:09 EDT, 25 October 2026 | Updated: 18:13 EDT, 25 October 2026 This City Is Ours (BBC) Rating:(Four out of five stars)What a relief to find a thick drug dealer. Most of them are urbane toffs like Theo James in The Gentlemen or ultra-cool masterminds like Peaky Blinders kingpin Tommy Shelby.Henchman Ando (Theo Nate), in This City Is Ours, is more true to life. If his brain were made of cocaine, he wouldn’t have enough on him to get arrested. Even sniffer dogs would ignore him.As he swaggered into the house of rival gangster Banksey (Mike Noble) and started giving him lip, Ando found himself looking down the barrel of a silenced pistol.‘Is that vest bulletproof?’ Banksey asked casually, the way you might wonder if his pullover came from Marks and Sparks.‘Yeah, it is,’ said Ando, too dumb to stay shtum. So Banksey shot him, and then did it again for good measure.It was a rare moment of dark comedy in an episode that, as the show returned, was often violent but seldom upbeat. What a relief to find a thick drug dealer. Most of them are urbane toffs like Theo James in The Gentlemen or ultra-cool masterminds like Peaky Blinders kingpin Tommy Shelby Ozzie hasn’t bumped into the head of Banksey’s gang, the brooding Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce), but a war between the two of them promises to be the mainspring of this eight-part seasonIt began with murder, with Banksey running over a Colombian cartel boss who didn’t take the basic precaution of looking both ways before stepping out into a Liverpool road.The next 30 minutes slowed to a crawl, the main theme being the grief of women widowed by gang feuds. Julie Graham, as Elaine, was missing dead husband Ronnie (Sean Bean) so much that she drank red wine until she could see his ghost sitting at the kitchen counter.Grief-stricken Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) was also knocking back the claret, though she’d admittedly had a tough day – finding her dead husband’s rotting corpse in a body bag in the Spanish hinterland, playing Ave Maria on her phone over his shallow grave, and then getting kidnapped by the Colombian drug lord’s brother.All this grimness became oppressive, until the drama began to feel as entertaining as a migraine. But the pressure found a release when Banksey and his mate went to collect a drugs shipment at a carwash. As his car was smothered in foam, it seemed to close in on him like a coffin. When the jet hoses hit the windscreen, he and I both jumped out of our skins.Shaun Evans joins the cast as an ex-jailbird called Ozzie, with an air of amiable menace. First, though, Michael has to appease the Colombians, currently holding his pregnant girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow) hostageEveryone seems to know him and no one was expecting to see him, which suggests they all thought he was still inside. Labour’s early release scheme is upsetting everyone, even the criminals.Ozzie hasn’t bumped into the head of Banksey’s gang, the brooding Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce), but a war between the two of them promises to be the mainspring of this eight-part season. First, though, Michael has to appease the Colombians, currently holding his pregnant girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow) hostage.In a bold move, the show has adopted Matt Monro’s gorgeous hit On Days Like These as its title music. I thought that song was copyrighted to The Italian Job.