Sincere retelling of the horrors of World War II prisoners puts the drama back into Sundays

Irish Independent

21-07-2025

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, starring Ciarán Hinds and Jacob Elordi, tells the story of an adulterous Australian who became slave labour for the Japanese as they built the notorious Burma Railway
Sunday night dramas used to be as unavoidable on the telly as the news. It was what you watched when you knew you hadn't done your homework, and that Monday was lurking just over the horizon. There's been a bit of a falling off in the Sunday drama since then.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (BBC One) looks like filling that gap. In one way it is absolutely your traditional Sunday night drama: handsome hero just going into the army at the beginning of World War II. Beautiful women throwing themselves at the handsome hero, who also reads the Latin poets – although in translation, I think. His future in-laws are filthy rich. What could go wrong?
But The Narrow Road to the Deep North is also really shocking, because, although it opens with a scene showing killings in Syria – horribly topical – the handsome hero is a medical officer with an Australian platoon that is eventually taken prisoner by the Japanese. The Australian soldiers become slave labour for the Japanese as they build the notorious Burma Railway. The sufferings of the Australians are appalling: starvation, disease, beatings and torture. Survival seems almost impossible. One of the questions asked by the this series is: what happens to you if you manage to survive?
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is told across three timelines. Ciarán Hinds plays Dorrigo Evans in old age. He's a bit of a hero in Australia, because of his wartime experiences. He's a respected if controversial surgeon. He's a celebrity of sorts.
Discussing what happened to Australians who were prisoners of war of the Japanese is simply impossible. 'Because you weren't there,' as he tells an uppity young woman journalist. But then there are a whole lot of things the old Dorrigo won't discuss – like his ongoing adultery habit.
The second story is the development, before he enters his army service, of a passionate affair between Dorrigo and the beautiful Amy, even though he was engaged to the beautiful Ella at the time. The young Dorrigo is played by Jacob Elordi, who starred as Elvis in the film Priscilla and also as the ravishing young rich boy in Saltburn, so no wonder he is getting so much action.
And the third story is the life of the slave labourers on the railway, in all their misery. It is alarming to see how thin the actors, and even the extras, have made themselves in order to play their roles as human skeletons. They went on a six-week weight-loss programme, apparently. Although Elordi, who reportedly underwent the same regime, still looks remarkably well. He's pretty much the only Australian prisoner of war to keep his shirt on, whilst his fellow prisoners are pretty much naked and the picture of wretchedness.
One thing that shines through here is the love that these beaten men showed each other, which is as clear as the horrors they had to endure.
But however bad the actors look, it is safe to assume that no television programme can reproduce the real suffering. This is a true story, with real survivors. One of whom was Frank Pantridge, a doctor like the fictional Dorrigo but from Northern Ireland, who was imprisoned by the Japanese. His health was permanently affected due to his sufferings as a slave labourer on the Burma Railway. He later invented the portable defibrillator which at one time made Belfast the safest place in the world to have a heart attack. He has been called the father of emergency medicine.
Another remarkable survivor was the artist Ronald Searle. He invented the anarchic St Trinian's stories, and also illustrated the comic Molesworth series. Searle was a young British soldier taken captive by the Japanese. In the camp, after having worked for 16 hours per day, he drew his fellow soldiers and what they were enduring. In response, his Japanese captors broke his right hand. What they had failed to realise was that Searle was left-handed. He drew and drew – he made his first St Trinian's drawing whilst a prisoner – and he hid his sketch books for safekeeping under the bedding of the prisoners who had contracted cholera. He eventually died aged 91.
In Australia, the experiences of their troops at the hands of the Japanese naturally left a vivid scar. The series is based on the novel of the same name, which won the 2014 Booker prize. Its author Richard Flanagan, who is from Tasmania, had been partly inspired by the wartime captivity of his own father.
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This story is now fading from general memory, as the survivors have died. But there is another story, of the South Asian civilians who worked on the Burma Railway, amongst them Tamil and Malay people, who died at an even greater rate than the British and Australian soldiers.
It remains to be seen whether the television version of The Narrow Road to the Deep North can live up to the history that gave birth to it. The different timelines can be confusing and – this is a familiar viewer complaint at this stage – some scenes are literally very dark. But it is a sincere retelling of a terrible story and well worth a watch.