Melvyn Barnes

Inspired by Stephen Sayers' rise from the backstreets of Newcastle's West End to the top of the criminal ladder and the authorities subsequent attempt to bring him crashing back down again.

Tensions rise in a small rural community when a grieving young girl finds solace in the unlikely friendship she forms with a reclusive actor, but things quickly spiral out of control when he is wrongly accused of sexually abusing her.

Over the course of four decades, the personal lives of a quartet of Newcastle friends—Nicky, Geordie, Mary, and Tosker—intertwine with various political machinations, often for the worse: slum housing projects, police corruption, the rise of Thatcherism, political sleaze, and specific events like the 1984 Miners' Strike.