This City Is Ours review – the Liverpudlian gang drama is back … and the acting’s as terrific as ever

Nefarious doings, tiny-headed henchmen and sockless villains – the mob saga is back. And it’s as lovable as it is bloody

Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in. Seventeen months after it huffed off in its Toyota Omertà, This City is Ours is back for a second series of high-stakes gangland bastardry. Which means, all things being equal, or at least Liverpudlian, we can expect more of the following: convoluted drug deals conducted over congealing ragu; shouting; tiny-skulled henchmen with chests of astonishing bulbosity, as if someone had squeezed their legs like tubes of toothpaste and all the meat had been forced up to their armpits; beards. So yes, it’s back. Go tell it on the mountain. And bring a shovel while you’re at it. A shovel? Yes, a shovel. Now stop asking questions and start digging; this corpse won’t disappear by itself.

“’Ee’s gone,” whimpers Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), blinking weepily in the Marbella sunshine as troubled mobster Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) manoeuvres the decomposing remains of her late husband into a makeshift grave. And ‘ee has. Gone that is. Poor Davy (Stephen Walters). Shot by erratic kingpin Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) for leaking information about a drug deal, his life snuffed out like a heavily discounted Yankee Candle. Davy is now, alas, gravy.

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