Britain in 1957 was so unutterably grim that dowdy bullion office worker Charmian Powell (Sheridan Smith) falls for cheeky chappy Ronnie Biggs (Daniel Mays) after a brief encounter on a train. She learns he's a convicted criminal, works as a carpenter and lives with another woman, but still agrees to steal from her employer and run away with him. He hits her, but still she stays. Her dad is a bully and a bore, but the words 'frying pan' and 'fire' spring to mind.
The performances are as good as expected and the writing by Jeff Pope is competent enough but... an 80-minute episode slipped by before we even got to the so-called Great Train Robbery, and there are another four episodes, presumably of 50 minutes, to go. We already know what happened, but do we care? They weren't Robin Hoods, just thieves; not folk heroes, just criminals. The drama doesn't appear to have anything interesting to say, probably because there's nothing more to be said.
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