Exile (2011)

A three part drama starring John Simm, Jim Broadbent and Olivia Colman? How could this not be anything other than unmissable? Luckily the whole was most definitely the sum of it's parts, as Exile turned out to be a moving, engrossing and surprisingly witty little mystery drama. Set in a sleepy Lancashire town, the plot sees prodigal son Tom (Simm) return home for the first time after walking out 18 years earlier, when Sam (Broadbent) almost beat him to death for reasons that Tom is soon to begin uncovering. As Tom digs around in Sam's past, he is thwarted in his quest for answers by the leader of the town council, a jealous husband, and most of all by Sam's Alzeheimer's disease. 

The central mystery of why Sam beat his son and what he was investigating all those years ago is enthralling and drew me in but the character work and the realistic dialogue kept me emotionally involved. Simm's confusion about the events of the past and his decision to take solace in the local barmaid (Claire Goose) make him confront his need for love as much as answers. Broadbent is incredibly subtle in what could have been a show role as the dementia stricken Tom - he lives in his own world, there's no struggling to try to remember or to get a grip on the present, he merely slips in and out of the past without means of control. At no point is the disease played for laughs, nor is it sentimentalised. The heart at the centre of Exile is Colman's Nancy, Tom's sister who was stuck behind at Sam's full time carer and has missed out on relationships, children and a life outside Lancashire. She faces the challenges of Sam's illness with good humour, but she is ready for Tom to take over and play his part now. When she finds out she's pregnant after a date with the most boring man in the world, it is the final straw when Sam pushes her to the ground, endangering the new life she has unexpectedly found inside her. 

Danny Brocklehurst's script is warm and wryly amusing - Nancy has a go at Britney on karaoke, Sam takes a moment to contemplate garden gnomes - and he keeps the mystery ticking along nicely while the central trio of actors show just how fantastic they are. A mini-series like this shows season long series like Rubicon how a well-crafted mystery can be pulled off in less than half the time, without detriment to character or an emotional core. This drama continues the run of cracking British drama of 2011 so far, what with The Shadow Line, Case Histories and The Crimson Petal and the White already proving that the genre is far from dead.