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Kiri is a new four-part drama starring Sarah Lancashire as Miriam, a social worker who owns a dog with low-level depression, whom she dotes upon, and her visits to her mother, Celia (Sue Johnston), in a nursing home.
I’m not a particular fan of Ms Lancashire and I couldn’t take to her in Happy Valley, so why am I watching another Sarah Lancashire drama? Well, Channel 4 usually offers something a bit different.
Before we get to the meat of the story, we see Miriam dealing with some of her run-of-the-mill (to her) cases, including a schoolboy called Patrick, who’s had an altercation with a girl and put her in hospital, this all showing just how varied and put-upon social workers are. They’re given an unrealistic workload and expected to come up trumps at every opportunity, but real life isn’t always like that.
Then on to Kiri, herself, a 9-year-old girl, adopted by white foster family Jim Warner (Steven Mackintosh) and his wife, Alice (Lia Williams), but after a number of supervised visits for Kiri to her grandfather, Tobi Akindele (Lucian Msamati), the go-ahead has been given for an unsupervised one.
I won’t say anything more than what’s been shown in the trailer, so as to avoid spoilers, and when the girl goes missing, this happy-go-lucky social worker finds herself enemy No.1, even though she did everything right… or did she? I was left unsure by the end, since while Miriam is not a perfect social worker, and perhaps a little bit maverick, her heart’s always in the right place.
Overall, it’s a very interesting first episode and even if you’re not sure about continuing with the series, the ‘next time’ segment at the end shows enough to make you want to see the next episode without giving too much away. At this point, I’ve only seen the first one, but I can see that this final section isn’t spoiling anything, in its construction.
After that, I did watch all the rest, and it was certainly engaging and worth checking out.
Kiri begins on Wednesday, January 10th 2018 at 9pm. Once broadcast, it will be on All4, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Overall: 7/10
Director: Euros Lyn
Producer: Toby Bentley
Writers: Jack Thorne and Rachel De-Lahay
Music: Clark
Cast:
Miriam Grayson: Sarah Lancashire
Julie: Claire Rushbrook
Jim Warner: Steven Mackintosh
Alice Warner: Lia Williams
DI Vanessa Mercer: Wunmi Mosaku
Si Warner: Finn Bennett
Kiri Akindele: Felicia Mukasa
Tobi Akindele: Lucian Msamati
Nate Akindele: Paapa Essiedu
Celia Grayson: Sue Johnston
Phil: Gary Shelford
Gabby: Scarlett Brookes
Patrick: Kaine Zajaz
Francis: Milo Twomey
Malcolm: Paul G Raymond
Lucy: Cara Theobold
Craig: Jordon Coulson
Rochelle: Andi Osho
DC Doug Thompson: Michael Shelford
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.