From iPad to Gameboy to Monopoly…

The games that the younger members of the Fletcher family are forced to play because of the constantly changing circumstances are a neat metaphor for the way in which things are not very slowly collapsing in the second part of Martin Jameson’s tale of a new civil war. The power grids cease working, so the only people who can charge electronic devices are those who’ve installed solar power – but that makes them targets for others.

What the cast, led by Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie as Dave and Ruth Fletcher, get across incredibly successfully in this drama is the way in which what seemed absolutely and utterly impossible just a few days earlier becomes their new reality. A wedding is disrupted by shelling, people from opposing forces want to take over their house and leave a deadly “gift” behind… and simply going back inside their house to collect something can have terrible consequences. Jameson has elected to tell the story from the micro level outwards, focusing primarily on the Fletchers and their extended family, with news broadcasts… or their replacements… filling in the bigger picture.

Verdict: Not pulling its punches for a second, this is gripping drama. 9/10

Paul Simpson