Occupation – BBC Drama with James Nesbitt

Beeb’s First Major Drama about the Iraq War

Jun 10, 2009

James Nesbitt plays one of three British soldiers whose lives detonate after experiencing the vicious chaos and human waste of the Iraq invasion during 2003.

This three-part BBC drama starts explosively with Mike (Nesbitt), Danny (Stephen Graham) and Lee (Warren Brown) emerging from their under-fire troop carrier to attack snipers in a block of flats.

Shot in documentary style and with helicopters and fighter jets screaming overhead, it’s a tense and visceral (not to say big-budget) opening salvo, though using Massive Attack's Teardrop here jars horribly.

Falling in Love with an Iraqi Doctor

Writer Peter Bowker’s story is not a typical war-is-hell polemic, aiming its focus more at the five years that follow the confrontation in the flats than battlefield horrors or the Blair-Bush justifications for the invasion.

The tale cuts to the trio’s homecomings – Mike as a hero for saving an Iraqi girl, Danny thinking no further than getting off his face with booze, drugs and sex, and Lee with his medical discharge.

As friends and loved ones clap them on the back, the men feel alien and can’t re-take control of their lives. Mike is obsessed with the female Iraqi doctor he met, Danny contemplates suicide and Lee finds brain-dead work as a bouncer.

James Nesbitt as British Soldier in Iraq

Episode one closes with all three heading back to the war zone for different reasons – crazy, but as depicted in this pretty compelling story, all believable instances of men jumping out of the frying pan and then back into it.

Whether viewers get into Occupation may come down to how much of James Nesbitt they can handle. The darling of programme commissioners (he's TV's most wanted star, according to Radio Times), he seems to turn up in every other TV drama and comedy like an irritating ad break. In fact, he pops up in the ads as well.

In his favour, it must be said he puts in a very strong, believable performance as Mike, building on his fine outing in Five Minutes of Heaven with Liam Neeson.

Occupation's Best Performance Is from Stephen Graham

But his is not the best performance or most interesting character here. Stephen Graham (menacing as a skinhead in This Is England; unintentionally hilarious as a bewigged Billy Bremner in The Damned United) is edgy and sympathetic as the damaged, mouthy Danny.

In one unforgettable scene he is disguised as an Iraqi and desperately strips naked to try to convince a fast-approaching tank that he’s not a terrorist. Audiences will be seeing a lot more of Graham. His next two high-profile roles are as Baby Face Nelson in Public Enemies and Al Capone in Martin Scorsese's Boardwalk Empire (on HBO).

And the Belgian-Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal as Aliyah Nabil, the Iraqi doctor who beguiles Mike, manages to be intelligent and vulnerable.

From Blackpool to Wuthering Heights

The acting is showcased in a gritty, convincing production. Morocco stands in for Basra during the battle scenes while a military adviser guided the actors for added authenticity.

Writer Peter Bowker’s past projects include Blackpool (with David Morrissey and David Tennant), and Flesh and Blood (Christopher Eccleston), while his forthcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights is coming up later this year on ITV (it’s already been shown in the US).

He stalled on writing an Iraqi war drama for a year. It was only when he learned about the billions of dollars misappropriated during the reconstruction of the country and its second invasion – by private ‘security’ contractors – that he had the hook he wanted.

Marching Against the War

This is the backdrop to the men’s return to Iraq in episodes two and three, and it has a shattering impact on them.

James Nesbitt, who marched against the war, still has great respect for the men and women in the armed forces.

‘I wasn't surprised to discover,’ he says in the press release, ‘that the marriage breakdown rate among soldiers who return from Iraq is something like 70%. Who do you share those extreme experiences with and how could your partner ever understand? In a way you need to get away from your Army colleagues, but who do you share those inner demons with if not them? Who lives those horrors with you?’

Viewers who complain that the schedules are overrun by reality TV and documentaries with titles like The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, should savour Occupation – a rare emotional, character-driven story that proves the BBC can still make strong contemporary dramas when it takes the chance.

The copyright of the article Occupation – BBC Drama with James Nesbitt in British TV is owned by Robin Jarossi. Permission to republish Occupation – BBC Drama with James Nesbitt in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.