By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
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Jimmy McGovern’s award-winning drama exploring ordinary lives on a street in Manchester
Year: 2006-2009
Certificate: 15
Jimmy McGovern’s award-winning anthology ran for three series between 2006 and 2009 and brought together an incredible cast of British stars under McGovern’s distinctive storytelling umbrella. Known for focusing on working-class lives and for tackling social issues and moral dilemmas, McGovern’s work – from Cracker to Time – is also always watchable and entertaining, and The Street is one of his finest, most highly regarded shows.
High praise indeed, but how does it hold up today? The series is character driven and the issues covered are the kinds of personal, family and community-based ones that never go away, from failing marriages and financial pressure to racism, faith and tragic accidents. It’s not a flashy series like you might get from HBO or Netflix today, but the quality of the cast and the writing stand tall beside the best that contemporary TV throws at us.
That cast includes the likes of Timothy Spall, Sue Johnston, Bob Hoskins, Anna Friel, Stephen Graham and Jane Horrocks. There are episodes that really stand out – Jim Broadbent’s Stan facing retirement, or those covering domestic abuse featuring Christine Bottomley and Lee Ingleby – but each and every hour-long episode, and there are 18 in total, has something to recommend it.
This is about as perfect as British TV gets (Three series)
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The Street
