Bleak, unashamedly macho and grown-up: BBC2’s The North Water reviewed

‘The world is hell, and men are both the tormented souls and the devils within it.’ This was the cheery epigraph from Schopenhauer with which The North Water introduced itself — aptly, as it transpired. Certainly, BBC2’s starry new Victorian drama is not for those who prefer their television characters to be loveable.

The first person we met was Irishman Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), who gruntingly concluded his business with a Hull prostitute before heading for the docks in a way familiar to viewers of Victorian TV dramas: shamble up the cobbles, straight on past the women in shawls, turn left at the urchins. Following a restorative dose of rum, he just had time to smash a fellow drinker over the head with a shillelagh prior to joining the Volunteer Arctic whaling ship where he soon proved not to be a rare bad apple. The first mate is Cavendish (Sam Spruell), approvingly described by the ship’s owner as ‘a great turd and whoremonger’.