When “bad” King John, retreating during the First Barons’ War, reached The Wash, a tidal estuary in the Midlands, he was in disarray. The Crown Jewels were lost to the water during his crossing, and shortly after he died at Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire. John’s wickedness may have been punished by Nottingham’s topography, but his image was crystallised by local mythology.
This is a land that repudiates authority, that challenges the rich and is laden with lost treasures – all themes that recur in the second series of James Graham ’s Sherwood , which returns to BBC One. In Ashfield and beyond, rumours are swirling about plans to reopen a pit in the Nottinghamshire coal belt, causing the new Sheriff, Lisa (Ria Zmitrowicz), to go head-to-head with a slimy tycoon, Franklin Warner (Robert Lindsay). But while this may be the big picture for the local area, more pressing concerns are arising between local crime families when drug-fuelled hothead Ryan (Oliver Huntingdon) summarily executes the son of a rival dynasty, precipitating an all-out turf war.
Quick trigger fingers pull in a host of returning characters – including David Morrissey’s detective, St Clair; Lesley Manville’s grieving widow Julie; and Lorraine Ashbourne’s peddling matriarch Daphne – and plenty new ones, played by a stellar cast of British TV talent: David Harewood , Monica Dolan , Sharlene Whyte and Stephen Dillane. The first series of Sherwood saw a community dealing with generational t.