Great acting and a flawless script... this is one of the year's best dramas ROLAND WHITE reviews the BBC's new prison drama Time

Time (BBC) 

Five out of five stars  

There's a heartbreaking moment in the prison drama Time when a young offender meets his birth mother for the first time.

She's from Kenya and doesn't speak English. He has a bad stammer, and can't understand what she's saying.

What makes it particularly moving is that writer Jimmy McGovern based this scene on a real incident. Only the language was changed.

It wasn't the only moment that makes Time one of the most powerful dramas of the year.

This is McGovern's third story based in prison. First it was a men's prison, then a women's prison, and now a young offenders institution. 

The age of the prisoners makes this series particularly watchable: that mixture of aggression, swagger and a vulnerability that they can't afford to reveal if they wish to survive.

The tension is relentless. The centre is constantly on the brink of violence. One little slip by the staff could prove fatal.

It makes you wonder: who'd want to work here? It's not just the constant shouting and banging from the cells but the threat that something could kick off at any moment.

'You don't open a gate here unless it's safe to do so,' warns custody manager Bobby Bailey (David Tennant). 'When is it safe to do so? Hardly ever.'

Into this cauldron steps new chaplain Marie-Louise O'Dell (Siobhan Finneran, who played scheming Miss O'Brien in Downton Abbey and appeared in the first two series of Time).

Miss O'Dell has her own problems. Her first action on arriving is to confess that she has lost her faith and so might not be suitable for the job. 

Not that it was a particularly robust faith – it disappeared when she was told off by the bishop. Luckily, agnostic chaplains still seem welcome in the modern prison service.

Officer Bailey shadows Miss O'Dell during her first days in the job, and it's soon clear that he has his own problems. His wife wants to leave him, and he could soon be homeless.

It's a miracle that this hasn't affected his work. In fact, by the end of the first episode he has his eye on a young offender's aunt. Surely that's against prison regulations?

As you might expect from Jimmy McGovern, the script is flawless, and you could say pretty much the same about the acting. 

Tennant is outstanding: calm and professional at work while we can only guess what's going on beneath.

In a final dramatic scene, an error of judgement by one of Bobbie's colleagues – something that Bobby advised against – has tragic consequences.

As the violence unfolded, you might have been grateful that some of these boys are kept away from the rest of us.

There was a message here, too: that the kind thing isn't always the right thing.