FORGET THE PRETTY PERIOD DRAMAS — STEPHEN GRAHAM COMMANDS A FLOATING HELL IN THE NORTH WATER, A BRUTAL ARCTIC NIGHTMARE THAT DESERVES TO BE REDISCOVERED

Stephen Graham has played gangsters, policemen, prisoners, chefs and broken fathers — but as the doomed Captain Brownlee in The North Water, he proves once again that few British actors can make silence feel quite so dangerous.

There are television dramas that invite you to settle comfortably into the sofa.

The North Water practically dares you to survive it.

From its grim Victorian streets to the frozen emptiness of the Arctic, Andrew Haigh’s five-part adaptation of Ian McGuire’s acclaimed novel is a merciless journey into greed, violence, addiction and the frightening things men become when civilisation disappears over the horizon.

There is blood.

There is ice.

There are secrets below deck.

And at the centre of the doomed whaling ship Volunteer stands one of Britain’s most reliably compelling actors: Stephen Graham.

Graham plays Captain Arthur Brownlee, the weathered master of the vessel carrying a crew of increasingly dangerous men towards the Arctic.

And while Colin Farrell’s monstrous harpooner Henry Drax understandably attracts attention — Farrell transformed himself physically into an almost unrecognisable brute — it is Graham who gives the ship its battered, uneasy authority.

He doesn’t need theatrical speeches.

He doesn’t need to dominate every frame.

Sometimes all Graham needs is a pipe, a stare and a few seconds of silence.

You immediately understand that Captain Brownlee is a man carrying far more than the responsibility of navigating through ice.

And the further the Volunteer sails from Britain, the heavier that burden becomes.

STEPHEN GRAHAM WAS MADE FOR THIS WORLD

There is something about Graham’s face that period dramas often use brilliantly.

It looks lived in.

He can communicate exhaustion, suspicion, anger and regret before he has said a single word.

As Brownlee, wrapped in heavy clothing against the Arctic cold, Graham looks as though the sea has been punishing him for decades.

This is not the polished captain of an adventure novel.

There is no glamorous naval uniform, heroic posture or inspirational speech about courage.

Brownlee is a working captain on a commercial whaler.

His ship exists to make money.

His men exist to perform brutal labour.

And the voyage is already poisoned before they have truly begun.

The Volunteer is ostensibly sailing north to hunt whales and seals in 1859, when the industry is entering decline. But its owner, Baxter, played with sinister restraint by Tom Courtenay, has another financial calculation in mind.

The ship is worth something.

Its destruction could be worth more.

Brownlee knows far more about that arrangement than the ordinary sailors aboard his vessel.

That secret immediately changes the way we watch Graham.

Every order carries another meaning.

Every crisis creates another calculation.

Every mile north brings the captain closer to the consequences of decisions made safely back on land.

Graham never plays Brownlee like a cartoon villain.

That is crucial.

He plays him as something far more interesting: a compromised man.

A SHIP FULL OF MEN YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO MEET IN A DARK ALLEY

Of course, Brownlee’s questionable choices are only one of the Volunteer’s problems.

The ship also happens to contain Henry Drax.

Colin Farrell is almost startlingly transformed as the harpooner, abandoning the polished charisma audiences associate with him for something heavy, filthy and frightening.

Drax is violence given human form.

He does not spend much time agonising over morality.

He takes what he wants.

He hurts people when it suits him.

And he appears almost perfectly adapted to a world where physical strength can become its own form of authority.

Opposite him is Patrick Sumner, played by Jack O’Connell.

Sumner is a former army surgeon carrying the psychological wreckage of his experiences in India.

He also carries laudanum.

Quite a lot of it.

He joins the Volunteer hoping, perhaps, that geographical distance might provide escape from the memories following him.

Anyone familiar with dark television drama will immediately understand the problem with that plan.

People rarely escape themselves simply by getting on a ship.

And this particular ship is sailing directly into hell.

O’Connell gives Sumner a nervous intelligence that contrasts beautifully with Farrell’s animal brutality.

But above both men stands Brownlee.

At least officially.

Captain Brownlee is supposed to represent order.

Stephen Graham makes us wonder how long that order can possibly survive.