'Sherwood' Greenlit for Season 2, Will Stream on BritBox
Every so often, a new BBC series comes along that's so chock full of recognizable stars that it's akin to watching a remix of your favorite British shows. For 2022, that series is Sherwood, the fictionalized retelling of real-life events in the mining village of Annesley Woodhouse, which is one of the BBC's critical darlings of the year. Considering both the cast and the high praise the series received, not to mention its immediate renewal for Season 2 following the finale, it was only a matter of time before someone scooped it up to stream on this side of the pond. The good news is that it's BritBox who's got hold of it, and will debut the series in October.
The confirmation that BritBox would stream Sherwood came as part of the Television Critics Association Press Tour. Asked about the use of the title Sherwood, which calls to mind the Robin Hood stories, as well as the area of Northern England where the story is set, series creator James Graham explained, "It's a part of the world that means a huge amount to me. I grew up in the community where the two murders that this story is inspired by took place... It was remarkable that the overlapping symbolism with somebody using a crossbow and then as an outlaw, disappearing into Sherwood Forest," Graham noted. "Narratives and mythology and folklore do feed into this story to expand it, I think, slightly outside the traditional crime drama."
The Robin Hood aspect isn't nearly as important as the area's history in the 1980s, much of which the rest of the world has forgotten. These mining towns suffered enormously under Thatcher's administration after she broke the miners' strike early in her rule as Prime Minister. The area is still considered a Labour-centric stronghold, British politics refer to Nottinghamshire and the surrounding country as "red wall" towns, because they form one on the voting results map, and is still a target for state surveillance, as evidenced by its being one of the earliest ground zero areas for the SpyCop scandal, another part of recent British history Americans might not be familiar with.
