Out There, ITV
The walls seem to be closing in on Welsh farmer Nathan Williams.
His wife has died and his daughter has taken herself off to France to try to recover.
His elderly neighbour shoots himself in the barn with his wife screaming outside, such is the pressure of farming, and Nathan (Martin Clunes) is left trying his best to help his widow.
There’s a new corporation in the Welsh valleys that he fears is trying to force him out, demonstrated by the drones they are flying over his land as he takes pot shots with his shotgun.
If that’s not enough, his son Johnny is not performing at school and has got himself involved with a ‘county lines’ drugs gang.
Nonetheless, our hero, who is no longer a young man, is standing strong.
He’s managing his own farm well, he’s considering buying the neighbours’ farm rather than succumb to the market, and he’s followed the new corporation to their base and shot down one of their drones.
He’s got eyes for the local Polish cleaner, who appears to like him back, and he’s tackled the drugs gang straight on.
New ITV drama Out There may sound like a misery fest but it’s not.
Clunes is excellent in this clash of worlds drama which sets Nathan as a kind of King Canute in the Welsh countryside, trying to hold back the tide of drugs, activists and industrialisation encroaching on his ancient way of life.
Traditional values are under threat.
Nathan is hard-working, neighbourly and robust. The local cop, PC Crowther, is the same, but almost everyone younger has a different view of the world.
Except the Polish cleaner and farm hand. As immigrants they understand what hard work is and how they must persist despite the challenges.
Johnny is not interested in farm work and spends most of his time playing computer games. Perhaps this is why he’s stupidly been tricked by the drugs gang.
His ‘friend’ Rhys asks Johnny to mind a package for him before returning to nick it back (a rugby ball wrapped in brown paper) from Johnny’s bedroom drawer.
Johnny, assuming he’s lost a stash of drugs, is now in his debt and gets dragged gradually into being a drugs courier.
He’s spotted by PC Crowther on a drugs drop at the local hotel but is let off on a last warning. “I’ve got a two strikes policy,” she says.
When his father finds out, he’s determined to put a stop to it and takes his son to see Rhys in his flat.
No-nonsense Nathan tries to buy Johnny’s freedom but when he finds out that the package is a fake, he pockets the money and flushes Rhys’s stack of heroin, packaged into smaller deals, down the toilet.
At one bound Johnny is free, until he gets dragged back in with the oldest scam in the book.
Rhys’s sister Sadie, whom he’s always fancied, meets him at school and claims she’s being forced to pay off his debt and has to travel to the main town to give money to the main dealer.
As episode two closes, Johnny offers to go with Sadie to protect her, the big eejit.
Out There covers ground rarely travelled by popular drama and is the stronger for it.
Clunes, despite some criticism of his Welsh accent, is superb and the clash between traditional values and more recent concepts of behaviour is well handled.
Nathan’s view – life is a tough struggle that has to be fought every day – may be starting to come back into vogue.
:: Out There is on ITV1 on Sunday and Monday with all episodes streaming on ITVx
