The moment chilling BBC thriller ‘manifested biggest strike in the UK’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a webbrowser that supports HTML5video Sherwood writer James Graham has reflected on a poignant moment from the hit BBC thriller’s first series that foreshadowed the biggest strikes in the UK. In June 2022, the David Morrissey -starring series launched, plummeting the 1980s Nottingham miners’ strike back into the spotlight . It followed the trauma that left the community broken decades after the strikes, and ongoing tensions with the police, sparked by a series of murders.

At the time, Graham wanted to tell a story inspired by the trauma and the divisions in a community that continue to exist today, but little did he know how his story would mirror modern history. Around the show’s premiere, RMT staff voted to strike over pay, jobs and conditions disputes in the biggest strike the country had ever seen. The industrial action threatened to bring the country to a standstill, and increased tensions between transport staff and the government – which continues now .

Ahead of the second season of Sherwood, screenwriter Graham remarked on the link between his drama and recent events. ‘That was a strange time,’ he began. ‘I remember the episode in the first series where Lindsay Duncan was talking to [David Morrissey] and it was almost like Lindsay Duncan manifested the biggest strike in the UK that evening, because the morning after the RMT came out, it was the biggest industry action since the miners.