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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Anna Friel steals every scene in Jimmy McGovern's Unforgivable
Liverpool-born TV luminary Jimmy McGovern first rose to prominence – after a stint on soaps like Brookside and Corrie – with Cracker, a detective series starring Robbie Coltrane as a misanthropic criminal psychologist. Since then, he has become the great chronicler of Britain's ills. From the Hillsborough disaster to the Iraq war, via inquisitions on joint enterprise, unemployment, and disability cuts, he has run the gamut of social failings. And a recurring theme, running from 1994's Priest to 2017's Broken, is the legacy of child abuse, a subject he explores in profound detail, again, in BBC Two's Unforgivable. Joe Mitchell (Bobby Schofield) is in prison, having been found guilty of sexually assaulting his 12-year-old nephew, Tom (Austin Haynes). Tom's mother, Anna (Anna Friel), struggles with Tom's increasingly erratic behaviour, while grieving for her and Joe's mother, who has just died. When Joe is released from prison, he is offered a second chance by a group of Christians, led by Katherine (Anna Maxwell Martin), who believe in rehabilitation and offer Joe a chance to, if not start again, resume some sort of quotidian existence. 'Isn't forgiveness selfish?' she asks Joe, as they explore how he can rejoin society. But Joe isn't really looking for absolution; he's looking for answers. And here, the long, multi-generational shadow of abuse casts its shade. 'No one's perfect,' family friend Paul (Mark Womack) consoles Anna's widower father Brian (David Threlfall), who, in addition to losing his wife, is estranged from his paedophile son and watching his daughter's family life disintegrate. In a way, he's right. All of McGovern's characters are dealing with the fractured messiness of life (even Maxwell Martin's God-botherer has breast cancer, 'the nun's disease'). This panoply of personal disasters gives rise to some brilliant acting from the assembled ensemble of McGovern regulars. Schofield is transformed from his roles in This City Is Ours and SAS: Rogue Heroes, imbuing Joe with a magnetic, itching discomfort. Friel, meanwhile, steals every scene she's in as a desperate, but still poised, mother. The material is red meat to fine actors, and they eat it up. Whether it's so nourishing to audiences is debatable. There is no challenging McGovern's willingness to gaze into the abyss – he has been doing it for more than 30 years now – but is the abyss gazing back? As it progresses, Unforgivable tries to engage with the cyclical nature of abuse ('Some men who abuse have themselves been abused,' Katherine informs Joe) but ends up feeling simplified and rushed. A complex, nuanced narrative that might've stretched over the course of a multi-episode mini-series is, here, condensed into 105 minutes. Joe's dual role – as both victim and abuser – is one that oscillates, the very instability of its nature forming the crux of how these crimes are perpetrated and then covered up. But the constraints of the plot dumb this down somewhat, and the narrative becomes increasingly procedural. 'I could cope with the lying,' Joe laments, as he picks at old wounds. 'But all this truth? It's too much for me.' McGovern has worked with non-fiction in the past (Sunday, for example, is about Bloody Sunday), but more often he builds, like Ken Loach, stories as composites of abstracted case studies. At its best, this approach adds an intimacy that true life portraits can struggle with, where the interiority is limited by the strictures of fact. But, at other times, it can feel like these characters are only being imagined into life in order to put them through intense suffering. Unforgivable is undoubtedly a sympathetic piece – even Joe is afforded a reluctant dignity – but it is also a concatenation of personal miseries. Sunlight, it seems, doesn't often fall on Merseyside. For some, it will be enough simply to give these tough issues an airing. 'Important' is an easy adjective to apply to a McGovern drama. But for viewers to endure a couple of hours of fairly unrelenting gloom, there needs to be a spark beyond great performances and plausible writing. Unforgivable feels like an endurance test, whose message – that empathy must prevail – could've been expressed with more dynamic light and shade.
Cosmopolitan
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
Is the BBC's Unforgivable based on a true story? Events that inspired "shocking" drama explained
Unforgivable is the BBC's latest drama looking at the devastating effect of child abuse within a family. Starting on Thursday 24th July, the one of show follows Joe (played by Bobby Schofield), who having served his prison sentence arrives at St Maura's, an institution for rehabilitation. Here, he meets an ex nun named Katherine (Anna Maxwell Martin) who supports him as he goes through therapy, with the hope of understanding what led him to abuse his nephew. Meanwhile, his sister, Anna (Anna Friel), is dealing with the enormous impact that Joe's crime has had on her family - her sons, Tom (Austin Haynes) and Peter (Fin McParland), and her father, Brian (David Threlfall). The events are truly shocking, and has led many to question whether it's is based on a true story. Here's everything you need to know. While Unforgivable isn't based on one particular true story, the show was inspired by real events. Ahead of the new drama, screenwriter Jimmy McGovern revealed how he received a letter from a woman who works with people who've committed sexual crimes and felt "compelled" to tell this story. He said: "I received a letter from a woman who works with sex offenders and wanted to speak to me. She spoke no holds barred about her job and working with sex abusers. She told me certain facts and figures that are quite unbelievable, so I want people to watch the film and learn things about child abuse. I felt compelled to write about it." McGovern previously explored this topic in TV shows Priest and Broken. On why he decided to explore this further in Unforgivable, the writer continued: "I've always been quick to condemn child abusers, as we all are and as we all should be. This is not a film that goes easy on child abusers at all. I wanted the audience to hear a few of the things I'd learned. I think we should be ultra cautious whenever we're dealing with abusers. I'm a father and a grandfather, I would find it very hard to forgive somebody who had done that to me or my family." On what he hopes viewers will take away from Unforgivable, McGovern added: "If they watch it, they will learn things. Even though we're talking about child abusers, I think I still think there's a need for compassion. Caution, yes, punishment, yes, justice, yes. These are enormous crimes, they must be punished, you must go to prison. But alongside all that, an element of compassion. To understand a bit more and equally condemn." Unforgivable starts on BBC Two on Thursday 24th July at 9pm.
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Inspiration behind harrowing new drama Unforgivable as it lands on BBC
Unforgivable official trailer for BBC drama Unforgivable, the new BBC2 drama, has already proved to be a talking point due to its very sensitive narrative, with the whole feature drama centring around grooming and sexual abuse. For esteemed screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, tackling the taboo subject through the harrowing drama is something he feels needed to be done. He is hoping viewers will walk away from the production with a new sense of education and perspective, that they otherwise may not have had before. Jimmy is a firm believer that child abusers "should be held to account and also punished for their crimes", stating that to the BBC that he would personally find it "very hard to forgive" if the same harm came to his own family. Jimmy McGovern opens up on the "truth" behind Unforgivable (Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC) The new 90-minute series which is set in Liverpool, follows the Mitchell family whose lives have been shattered by the devastating consequences of sexual abuse. As a family, they are now living with the aftermath and the reality that the perpetrator, Joe, played by Bobby Schofield, is now being freed from jail with rehabilitation after serving just a two year prison sentence. Bobby Schofield plays perpetrator Joe (Image: BBC / LA Productions / Kerry Spicer) Anna Friel plays Anna Mitchell, the sister of Joe but also the desperate mother who will stop at nothing in protecting her two children, with her eldest son played by Adolescence actor Austin Hayes. The pain spirals through the entire family with David Threlfall playing a key role of Anna's father, who is angry after realising she'd reached out to her abuser brother Joe. Unforgivable creator, Jimmy, had one main aim to ensure that every character within the family had a voice at the table to further highlight the toll and emotional hold such an awful crime can have on everyone involved. With the adaption being so raw and close to the bone, it really is no wonder that thoughts are turning to whether there is a deeper truth hidden within Jimmy's compelling drama. Anna is desperate to protect her two children but is conflicted as her brother Joe is the person who committed the crimes (Image: BBC) The Cracker and Time writer opened up on what had inspired him to pen something so dark-routed, revealing there was an element of truth within his creation. Speaking about his thought process and how the idea blossomed, he confessed: "I received a letter from a woman who works with sex offenders and wanted to speak to me. "She spoke no holds barred about her job and working with sex abusers. She told me certain facts and figures that are quite unbelievable, so I want people to watch the film and learn things about child abuse. I felt compelled to write about it." Jimmy has never shied away from discussing the topic of abuse and had even written past productions such as Priest and Broken, that follow in similar vein. Addressing the link in his writing style, he explained to BBC: "I've always been quick to condemn child abusers, as we all are and as we all should be. "This is not a film that goes easy on child abusers at all. I wanted the audience to hear a few of the things I'd learned. I think we should be ultra cautious whenever we're dealing with abusers. I'm a father and a grandfather, I would find it very hard to forgive somebody who had done that to me or my family." The drama has landed on BBC's streaming platform this morning at 6am and will air tonight, from 9pm on BBC2, with the compelling story already proving to be a drama not to be missed.
Business Insider
04-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
PwC's chief AI officer: AI is moving quickly. Here's how leaders can avoid getting left behind.
Many corporate leaders are embracing artificial intelligence in theory but falling short when it comes to execution, according to Dan Priest, who was named PricewaterhouseCoopers' first chief AI officer a year ago. With generative AI radically reshaping how everything from accounting and human resources to sales and marketing gets done, CEOs' leadership skills are being put to the test. How they go about their AI strategy today, warned Priest, will likely mean the difference between achieving greater cost savings and faster growth in the next few years versus falling behind the curve. "It is a disruptive journey that needs to be managed," he told Business Insider. Consider, for example, a PwC survey of approximately 4,700 CEOs last year found that four out of 10 expect their business models to no longer be viable in the next decade if AI continues to develop at its current rate. Priest said this suggests companies will need to come up with new — and likely AI-powered ways — of generating revenue, which can be difficult. Given how fast generative AI has been evolving, Priest stressed the importance of CEOs investing in AI tools and strategic planning around them now, if they haven't already, to set their businesses up for success. But he conceded that the task is challenging. For one, leaders need to find ways to distinguish their companies from others using AI if they want to stand out from competitors, said Priest. Most use cases today are merely setting a new standard for table stakes. "If AI is ubiquitous and everybody's got it, it can't be your differentiator alone," he said. Leaders also need to figure out which job functions will be aided by AI and to what extent, and which ones will become obsolete, said Priest. Further, they should determine where new skills are needed, invest in helping employees develop them, and assess where talent may need to shift to other areas of the business. "If you believe that people are an important part of your success in the future, you should invest in their reskilling," he said. Workers aren't all using AI tools in the same way, added Priest. "Early-career-stage team members are more likely to turn over the thinking too much to AI," he said. "Late-stage-career team members are probably too reticent to use it consistently." One tip Priest has for anyone using AI to write memos or other text is to only rely on the technology for a second draft. People should produce a first and last version on their own, he said. "You want the thinking to be yours. That's why the first draft is so important," Priest said. "You want the benefit of the edit and you want the final draft to be in your voice." This is also an example of why he believes humans should be at the center of companies' AI-related initiatives. "The shiny new object is AI, but I don't know a single AI agent that is changing a business," he said. "It's the humans combined with those AI agents that change the business."
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Watch Judas Priest pay tribute to Black Sabbath with thunderous War Pigs cover
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Judas Priest have covered War Pigs in tribute to fellow Birmingham heavy metal legends Black Sabbath. Earlier today (July 1), the self-anointed Metal Gods put out their take on the opening song from Sabbath's seminal second album Paranoid, the original version of which they've played from the tape before their concerts for many years. The band comment: 'We are honoured to show our love for Ozzy [Osbourne] and Black Sabbath with our homage to War Pigs: a song we play at every show around the world that fans sing along to – reinforcing their love as well for the legendary Prince Of Darkness!' Sabbath's founding lineup – vocalist Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward – will reunite onstage for the first time in almost 20 years at their Back To The Beginning all-dayer this Saturday (July 5). Being held at Villa Park in Birmingham, the show will mark Osbourne's last time onstage, following his retirement from touring in 2023. The singer will play both with Sabbath and as a solo artist, and the bill will be rounded out by a who's-who of hard rock and heavy metal, with other performers including Metallica, Guns N' Roses and Slayer. Priest are one of the few vaunted metal bands to not be on the lineup for Saturday, but they're missing out for good reason. As frontman Rob Halford recently explained to Metal Hammer, the band are playing the 60th-anniversary celebrations for hard rockers Scorpions in Germany the same day and wouldn't be able to make both shows happen. He said he was 'gutted' over the clash but added that founding guitarist K.K. Downing, who left Priest in 2011, would represent 'the spirit of the band' at Back To The Beginning. Priest are currently touring Europe on their Shield Of Pain run, celebrating both their latest album Invincible Shield and the 35th anniversary of their 1990 classic Painkiller. The tour will be capped off by two UK shows, the second being a co-headliner with Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena in London on July 25. Priest will tour North America with Cooper from September to October. See details and get tickets via their website.
