Schumacher takes his time. The first episode establishes Leanne and Matty, the dodgy casino boss (Barry Sloane) and his mum (Geraldine James), and introduces various plot lines. It can feel both busy and slow, but stick with it. The story carries you along through the sheer force of Socha’s and Smith’s charisma and you’ll be rooting for this hopeless Bonnie and Clyde.
These flawed characters are fundamentally good people whose desperation leads them to do bad things. Schumacher’s 10 years in the police have informed his world view. The lead gangster isn’t a cardboard cut-out villain either. The only character who doesn’t ring true is, ironically, a police officer investigating corruption at the casino. She’s the kind of tenacious female detective who crops up in every TV drama.
There’s a tenderness to the portrayal of Liverpool and it feels rather lovely to have two further Brookside alumni (alongside Sloane) in the supporting cast, in the shape of Louis Emerick and Sue Jenkins, aka Mick Johnson and Jackie Corkhill.
The drama is heightened – it isn’t even the lowest point of Matty’s week when he’s punched in the face by a loan shark who punishes him for non-payment by making him take possession of a holdall full of cocaine, which his disapproving teenage daughter stumbles across and throws away – yet the drama always feels rooted in real life. “F—ing hell, Matty, it’s not Line of Duty,” the detective tells him, and it’s all the better for it.
The Cage is on BBC iPlayer