Out There on ITV review: Martin Clunes is magnificent in this bleak tale of county lines trafficking
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We only get five minutes into ITV’s newest drama, Out There, before the scenes of bucolic Welsh countryside are shattered. A farmer strolls through fields with a shotgun crooked over his arm (already ominous) and a sheepdog at his heels. And as he walks, he sees a drone buzzing overhead. The farmer promptly shoots it down, and so begins a protracted war that will slowly destroy his life, and that of his young son. Cheery!.
Our farmer is Nathan Williams, who’s played by Martin Clunes with aggressive false cheer and a thick, homely Welsh burr. He’s been trying to make a living from the land for decades, but things are hard. He and his son Johnny (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) knock around a giant empty farmhouse, left emptier by the death of his wife two years previously. Scenes of them eating dinner are done in silence.
It's quiet, desolate stuff, and Clunes sells it utterly, affecting a type of ‘we’ll get through this’ stoicism, which slowly crumbles to reveal something a lot more ruthless. And then the drug dealers move in. The name ‘Out There’ suggests an alien invasion of some sort, or a Hot Fuzz-style farmer-vs-world scenario. The series’ imagery backs this up, showing Clunes staring into the dark and wielding a shotgun like an American cowboy.
The reality is less dramatic but arguably scarier. Here, the aliens are drug dealers from the cities, who are slowly moving into the countryside, and causing havoc among the locals. It starts slowly; insidiously. Johnny is given a package to look after by a friend, Rhys (Gerran Howells). The mysterious drone keeps showing up. Somebody who claims to be a businessman attempts to move into Nathan’s holiday home, which they no longer rent out. Jeeps are seen driving around off-road in the undergrowth.
