The Gold

The Gold rises to the top of the genre for its keen understanding of pace and character, and the unique ability to weave various far-flung threads into a cohesive whole. It’s not easy, but they make it look that way, and in the process they’ve created one of the best crime shows of the decade.

Its straight-ahead, old-fashioned vibe is refreshing. It harks back, in a distant way, to hard-boiled British gangster films like “Get Carter” and “Villain,” offering a whiff of that kind of grit and atmosphere.

A major flaw, however, is the relentless, clunking “likes of us!” speechifying about class/unfairness. Granted, it’s set in Thatcherite times, but the repetition borders on the farcical. Still, potent performances and no-frills storytelling deliver a series with grit and shine.

From robbery ringleader Micky (Adam Nagaitis) to the high-level fence Kenneth Noye (Jack Lowden, of "Slow Horses") to the likes of businessman Gordon Parry (Sean Harris) and the crooked solicitor Edwyn Cooper (Dominic Cooper), who start laundering the money and buying up the waterfront. They're all vile, deliciously so. The cop-craft as practiced by the team of Bonneville, Spencer and Elliot is electric, never mind convincing.

It would be unfair to fault a consistently entertaining TV drama for falling short of the gritty and gobsmacking truth. The Gold is also partially redeemed by a finale that manages to cleverly wrap up loose narrative ends, while acknowledging that the full story is yet to be told – and likely never can be

Overall, The Gold was a measured and well-executed drama willing to take its time over establishing how the deep roots of this single crime became threaded through the British criminal underworld and legitimate businesses alike.

The Gold accepts that the theft was the easy part. Telling the story of what happened next – and making it every bit as exhilarating as a full-blown safecracking caper – is the show’s true alchemy.

An involving British drama. .... Stretched over six episodes, it’s not a speedy telling.