The power and ambition of this Adam Curtis-directed, James Graham-written series about Welsh revolution is utterly innovative. It’s so fresh and different you have to take notice
The BBC’s new three-part drama The Way is Michael Sheen’s directorial debut. It has been nearly a decade in gestation, this story of civil unrest fermenting in Sheen’s Welsh home town of Port Talbot – cradle of militant unionism and symbol of working-class fury and pride. It has been created with writer James Graham (Brexit: The Uncivil War, Quiz, Sherwood) and – slightly more unusually, documentary auteur Adam Curtis.
The opening episode is something so different and fresh that even if you can’t say you’re actively enjoying it (though I was), the power and ambition of it all, the unashamed idiosyncrasy that permeates the direction, the allusiveness of the narrative and its slightly dreamlike (or nightmarish) off-kilter quality surely makes you sit up and take notice. It has a clear, accessible narrative at its heart, for sure, but the sensibility is rare and all its own.
The Way aired on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer
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