Silk (TV series)

Silk
Genre	Drama, crime, legal
Created by	Peter Moffat
Written by	Peter Moffat
Directed by	Michael Offer David Evans Catherine Morshead
Starring	Maxine Peake Rupert Penry-Jones Neil Stuke Tom Hughes Natalie Dormer Nina Sosanya John MacMillan
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	12 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Hilary Salmon
Producer(s)	Cameron Roach
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One BBC One HD ABC1 (Syndication)
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original airing	22 February 2011 (2011-02-22) - Present
Chronology
Related shows	North Square Criminal Justice
External links
Website

Silk is a British television drama series produced by the BBC and first shown in 2011. Written by Peter Moffat, the series follows a set of barristers, and what they do to attain the rank of Queen's Counsel, known as 'taking silk'.

Origin

Silk was commissioned by Jay Hunt, then-Controller of BBC One and Ben Stephenson, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning, and was filmed in July 2010. It is based on Moffat's experiences at the Bar. In an interview with The Guardian, he said "I want to tell it as it really is. The extreme pressure, the hard choices, the ethical dilemmas, the overlap between the personal and the professional, principles fought for and principles sacrificed, the Machiavellian politics, the sex, the drinking, the whole story—life at the bar is the richest possible drama territory."

The series' title refers to the act of being appointed a Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk". Queen's Counsel wear distinctive full-bottomed wigs and silk gowns when they appear in Court. It is this gown which gives rise to the colloquial reference to Queen's Counsel as "silks" as well as to the phrase "taking silk" referring to their appointment.

Overview

Silk follows a set of barristers from a chambers in London. The series' main focus is on Martha Costello (Maxine Peake) and her ambition to become Queen's Counsel as well as on her rival, Clive Reader (Rupert Penry-Jones), and the chambers' two new pupils, Niamh Cranitch (Natalie Dormer) and Nick Slade (Tom Hughes). The chambers' senior clerk, Billy Lamb (Neil Stuke), also features heavily.

The series' writer, Peter Moffat, also wrote the series Criminal Justice and North Square, as well as an episode of Kavanagh QC. Before the series started, Moffat said in an interview, "I wanted Silk to be full of politics and intrigue. From my experience at the Bar, I felt life in chambers had all of those components, with big stories and lots of courtroom drama—but I wanted to make it as much about barristers and their life in chambers as about the trials".

Cast

The cast of Silk, Series 1; from left to right: Nick Slade (Tom Hughes), Martha Costello (Maxine Peake), Clive Reader (Rupert Penry-Jones), Billy Lamb (Neil Stuke) and Niamh Cranitch (Natalie Dormer)

Character	Actor/actress	Series	Episode Count	Notes
Martha Costello QC	Maxine Peake	1-	12	Defence barrister, aspires in the first series to become a Silk
Clive Reader	Rupert Penry-Jones	1-	12	Barrister, aspires to become a Silk
Alan Cowdrey QC	Alex Jennings	1-	7	Head of Chambers
Billy Lamb	Neil Stuke	1-	12	Senior Clerk of the Chambers
Nick Slade	Tom Hughes	1	6	Pupil, shadows Martha
Niamh Cranitch	Natalie Dormer	1	6	Pupil, shadows Clive
Kate Brockman	Nina Sosanya	1	6	CPS prosecutor
John Bright	John MacMillan	1-	12	Middle Clerk of the Chambers
Jake Milner	Theo Barklem-Biggs	1-	12	Junior Clerk of the Chambers
George Duggan	Indira Varma	2-	6	Female Solicitor, forms a relationship with Clive in series 2
Caroline Warwick QC	Frances Barber	2-	6	CPS prosecutor
Mickey Joy	Phil Davis	2	5	Solicitor, reputed to be connected to a powerful criminal family
Bethany Brassington	Amy Wren	2	6	New clerk at Shoe Lane Chambers

Episodes

For a full list of episodes, see List of Silk episodes

Critical reception

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, barrister Sarah Palin praised Silk, saying that "the opening episodes do a good job of capturing the relentless pressure of the criminal Bar" and that "the competition for silk, while a useful plot device, also accurately reflects the fiercely competitive nature of the Bar", but added "the characters featured are a little more youthful than their real-life counterparts" and that the storyline in which one of the pupil barristers shoplifts his wig and gown struck "an absurd note". The Telegraph's television reviewer, James Walton, compared the series to Moffat's previous production, North Square, but said that Silk was "more viewer-friendly" and the characters "far easier to divide into heroes and villains". He concluded that the first episode was "a perfectly OK hour of telly—marred only by the fact that we’ve come to expect a bit more than that from Moffat." Alex Aldridge of The Guardian, meanwhile, called the series "underwhelming" and stated that it implied that cocaine use was "rife" amongst criminal barristers. Also writing in The Guardian, Lucy Mangan implied that the series was predictable and called it "a rare misfire by Peter Moffat [...] and aggravated by the squandering of Peake, whose usually overflowing talents seem to have been dammed here rather than encouraged to irrigate an oddly bloodless role".

The first series averaged 5.85 million viewers

The second series averaged 5.74 million viewers

External links

• Silk at BBC Programmes