The English
BBC 2| ★★★★★

A displaced people, trying to maintain their identity, forced to adapt to a hostile world, with dreams of returning to their land. It could be us, it could be a lot of groups, but in The English on BBC 2 it’s the Native Americans.

Writer, director and producer Hugo Blick has form working within these themes, with 2014’s The Honourable Woman seeking and mostly succeeding to tell a balanced tale within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and 2018’s Black Earth Rising incorporating the Rwandan genocide.

Both mini-series featured strong female leads in Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michaela Cole respectively, and so too here, with Emily Blunt bringing her usual combination of steely public schoolgirl resolve to the role of Cornelia Locke, an Englishwoman arrived in the American West seeking revenge.

She’s excellent, as is Chaske Spencer playing Eli Whipp, conflicted ex-cavalry scout and member of the Pawnee Nation reluctantly called in to guide the English one more time. In fact, the entire enterprise is excellent.

I admit, that’s not what I was expecting when I reluctantly listened to my family and friends’ recommendations. I mean, who are they to dare inform me what’s good?

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Toby Jones in The English

And it’s on the BBC so, I thought it’ll invariably have the trappings of an English period drama but in an American setting, which won’t favour the usual discrepancy in budget and overall cinematic quality when we attempt this kind of thing.

And from the publicity shots it looks a bit heavy, and we’re really meant to buy that Emily Blunt and that werewolf bloke from the Twilight saga would supposedly have any kind of connection?

Well, obviously I was wrong on all counts, and this really is an exceptional slice of television, succeeding in being both entertaining and somewhat haunting as it lingers on in the consciousness.

As always story rules, and Blick has constructed an original driven narrativebthat shifts across time, surprising the audience while deepening what’s already been established.

It’s intricate, and those types only comfortable with the who, the what and the why will have to chill out a bit, but with the series reaching its conclusion this week, everything comes together to congeal into a very satisfying whole.

It’s not just events that surprise: even the cinematography and set design miraculously bring something new to the Western genre. Light? Greenery?

Dust and mud and grit still abound, but beauty lies around every corner and sets the context for the coveting of the land by those that see her, irregardless of the tragic consequences.

With sad bits, wry bits, scary bits, shocking bits, there’s a risk of constant tonal shift affecting overall coherence, but it’s exactly because life contains all those moments that this feels so alive.

As the darkness gives the campfire its power, so do the many villains here, in the many forms that villainy can take.

You’ll certainly never hear the Welsh accent the same way again, nor be able to watch a revelatory Rafe Spall in a rom-com, yet there’s also the bitter reminder that for some, the villain’s just known as “the English.”