FAVE RAVE - Virdee

I love a good police procedural thriller, but these days its quite a crowded competitive market and not many of them are quite as brilliantly conceived as Virdee. 

Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) is a police detective in Bradford, he's married to Selma (Aysha Kala), who is a Muslim. As a consequence Harry's Sikh father refuses to see of acknowledge him anymore. His brother in law Riaz Hyatt (Vikas Bahi) is one of two local drug lords who are near to being at war with each other. Riaz is an old friend from Harry's teenage years. He uses Riaz to sound out what is really happening in the gangs on the streets. No one in his police force appears to know of this connection. There are then a series of murders, which appear to follow a gruesome set pattern. On the surface it's made to look like as though the two drug gangs are the cause. But something about it doesn't quite add up to Harry, he suspects there is a third person independently involved. Slowly, he gets closer to finding out who that is. As members of his extended family start getting drawn in, Harry's past actions come back to haunt him. 

Written and adapted by AA Dhand from his original series of novels, Virdee is thematically and visually punchy, set within the South Asian community of Bradford. Plenty of unexpected twists and cliffhangers at the end of an episode. In many ways Virdee is your classic unconventional cop with a dodgy past and family conflicts. But it is the placing of him within second generation immigrant communities, with the secondary theme of a clash going on between those still clinging to old country mores, and those who have been born in Bradford. Its not afraid to deal with race riots, gangsters, interfaith marriages and the nature of drug gang cultures in modern British cities. This gives it all the vivacious colour and fizz you could wish for in a contemporary thriller. 

The three central actors of Staz Nair, Aysha Kala and Vikas Bahi, give this show a very fresh star quality. Brilliantly filmed and paced, with a theme tune to match it in drama and colour . I loved every minute of this series I didn't want to rush through it, so much so, I refused to binge watch. Instead I savoured it episode by episode, spacing them out across a few weeks. Virdee was fabulous, more please.

CARROT REVIEW  8/8