Virdee - Season 1

With good actors, an interesting set and a lot of tension, Virdee has all the ingredients for a good crime series. Countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and India were once British colonies. Because of this past, there are large communities in the United Kingdom that originate from these countries. A city where many people with Asian roots live is Bradford in Yorkshire. And that city is the setting for the series Virdee, based on the book series by Amit Dhand.

The main character is detective Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) who is confronted with a serial killer who targets people from Asian communities. At the same time, he has a conflict with his Sikh family, who have great difficulty with the fact that his wife is Muslim. As Harry's problems at both work and private life grow, these cases soon turn out to be unexpectedly connected.

Virdee contains the tension you can expect from a series like this

Virdee has everything you can expect from a good BBC crime series. First of all, a good dose of tension. Although the first episode starts off quite calmly and the family feud seems more interesting than the murder case, the pace, and with it the tension, increases as the season progresses. Each episode ends with a solid cliffhanger. The story is well constructed, although we have seen this kind of cat-and-mouse games between a cop and a serial killer often enough in other crime series.

But that's not so bad, because Virdee has enough other qualities, including the cast. Staz Nair is well cast as Harry Virdee, although I thought some of the other actors were a lot better. Aysha Kala and Kulvinder Ghir in particular, who play his wife Saima and his father Ranjit respectively, are strong. They manage to show the conflict between Harry's family and his in-laws very well in their storyline. Vikash Bhai also does very well as Harry's criminal brother-in-law, with whom he has to form an uneasy alliance. In addition, Ramon Tikaram and Andi Jashy play two entertaining villain roles.

This series provides an interesting insight into British-Asian communities

Virdee also succeeds in showing a multicultural society. This corner of (British) society is not often seen in this kind of series. Despite the fact that the series is very dark in both tone and setting, it shows some bright spots with the diversity of cultures and colorful traditions. It shows well that the Asian communities are not a homogeneous group, but that there is a lot of diversity between and within these groups. In a genre that is flooded with many series that are very similar, Virdee knows how to distinguish itself well with this.

If you like British crime series, Virdee is definitely a must-see. While we often see a cat-and-mouse game between a murderer and a cop, Virdee proves itself well thanks to enough tension, good actors and an interesting picture of the Asian communities in Bradford. At the time of writing, the BBC has not yet announced anything about a possible second season, but the ending leaves enough room for a possible sequel. There are also more books about Virdee, and I hope we will see these on the small screen as well.