Prisoner 951 is based upon the first-hand accounts both Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband, Richard, who was locked up for almost six years against her will when she’d done nothing wrong, with treatment that was said to amount to torture.
One thing that also came out during this time was when then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, dropped the massive bollock of saying she was a journalist. However, I’ve always thought it was a particularly stupid thing to go visiting family in Iran, when it’s hardly run by a delightful regime who are welcoming with open arms.
Personally, I’d love to go and revisit Russia, after a school trip I went on for a week in April 1986, but it’s a ridiculous thing to do while Putin is in charge, and bombing whoever the hell he likes.
Initially, Nazanin (Narges Rashidi) is told to come with airport security, for reasons they won’t disclose – leaving her baby with her mother – only that they’ll release her “tomorrow”. Tomorrow, as stated above, wouldn’t come for almost 6 years.
The demented authories ask what is her “mission”, which she doesn’t have, but just that she came to be with family for New Year, leading them to stupidly speculate that that’s her “cover story”. And then it’s off to a prison compound, which the drama states is “Moghaddasi Court”, but Google can’t find it. However, wherever she was taken, they think she’s planning to overthrow the Iranian regime, albeit with zero evidence.
Prisoner 951 brilliantly gets across how she was forced to sign confessionss about things she didn’t do, claiming if she didn’t that she’d remain in their prison forever, by which time she’d already had experience of how grim as hell they are.
Meanwhile, her husband, Richard’s (Joseph Fiennes) also going through absolute hell, having to play the waiting game for a very long time before seeing any results, even though that involves geting onto the media to kick off about it, rather than sit tight at home, like the Government want him to do.
To that end, his MP is Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, but she’s since had to resign in January 2025 due to allegations of misconduct, including her connections to the ousted Bangladeshi regime. That’s a drama of its own making!
Kudos to everyone involved in Prisoner 951 – which was Nazanin’s assigned number in the initial prison – but they also owe me a new TV, because it makes me want to jump into the screen and rip off the heads of everyone complicit in her arrest, and if you do that, it hurts, and causes a cracked screen!
(P.S. My TV is fine, BTW)
Prisoner 951 begins tonight on BBC1 at 9pm.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
You can pre-order the Ratcliffes’ book, A Yard Of Sky, although at the moment, Amazon lists it as Untitled.
All episodes are available from day one on BBC iPlayer.
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe
Producer: Jenny Frayn
Writer: Stephen Butchard
Based upon the book “A Yard Of Sky”: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Richard Ratcliffe
Music: Dickon Hinchliffe
Cast:
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Narges Rashidi
Richard Ratcliffe: Joseph Fiennes
Baby Gabriella: Ella Varavipour
Zaghari Family
Baba: Bijan Daneshmand
Mamani: Behi Djanati-Atai
Mohammad: Kave Niku
Ratcliffe Family
John: Nicholas Farrell
Barbara: Marion Bailey
Uncle Geoff: Simon Armstrong
Rebecca: Catherine Bailey
Lim: Shaun Yusuf McKee
Other cast members:
Interrogator Seyed: Armin Karima
Interrogator Yazdi: Zanyar Mohammadi
Young Prosecutor: Hamid Azari
Penny Madden: Claudia Harrison
Monique Villa: Astrid Whettnall
Jason: Tristan Sturrock
George: Freddie Stevenson
Tobias Ellwood: Alistair Mackenzie
Oliver Denton: Sam Troughton
Tulip Siddiq MP: Farzana Dua Elahe
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.