Warning: this article contains spoilers for ITV’s The Walk-In.

In the ever-growing list of British TV dramas to add to our watchlist, we know by now that if Stephen Graham is involved, it’s set to be a corker. So, it’s little wonder we’ve been counting down the days until we could watch The Walk-In, Graham’s new drama based on an unbelievable true story.

When it comes to a series based on real-life events, it can often be hard to reckon with the dramatised, fictional aspects versus the often-mundane reality. But in this new drama, it’s the reality that will drum up emotions and uncomfortable home truths about the state of nationalism in this country.

The Walk-In is all about one activist’s mission to infiltrate a neo-Nazi group with an inside man. The activist in question is Matthew Collins (played by Graham), and in the first episode, we meet him as a reformed neo-Nazi, now working as a journalist for the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate. 

The first episode opens up with a bloody attack by a man targeting South Asian strangers in a supermarket, shouting “white power” as he does so. As we’re left reeling from the brutal scenes we’ve witnessed, we’re introduced to Collins (Graham) in the comfort of a lecture theatre. He’s talking about the increasing popularity of the “extreme far right”. He talks about their tactics and how they tell recruits of “a beautiful country of the past with no crime, no poverty” but it’s also a world with no Black faces or immigrants, Collins explains.

“The fact is, without those immigrants or Black faces helping to drive our economy for these past 70 years, this country would be falling apart … right now, one in every five people behind bars in this country for terrorist offences are white. That’s white terrorists, neo-Nazis.”

And throughout this premiere episode, we get a real sense of these people that Collins talks about. I’ll be honest, watching an hour-long episode where we see how easy it is for certain white men to become indoctrinated with damaging racist thinking is not immediately my cup of tea. Do we really need a series that gives a voice to the kinds of people in the world who only strive to create the most harm among marginalised communities?

But while it’s an uncomfortable watch for me as a woman of colour, it’s also an important one for others and for the times we’re in now. The Walk-In does a good job of weaving in real-life news footage to underline the fact that much of this regressive thinking originates from overzealous politicians like Nigel Farage, whose talking points only pave the way for a rising current of extreme views. 

It’s through the eyes of Robbie (Andrew Ellis) that we see this thinking start to take shape from its early stages in the series. He takes on multiple temporary jobs, but it’s only through working with men who hold negative views about Islam and prayer rooms that he then feels the need to attend his first extremist rally. And that’s where his thinking starts to take shape, much to his sister’s annoyance.

Much of this first episode is spent in a mindset that many of us can’t even begin to enter – it’s racist, sexist, mean, cruel and ignorant. Scene upon scene of men waving the union jack, talking so confidently about an Islamic religion they know nothing about and talking of a “white country” is enough to leave shivers down anyone’s spine. But that’s the point of this series: to agitate, to make viewers uncomfortable and recognise the reality of how easy it is for extremist thinking to seep into the everyday.

“The far right in this country’s been smashed; they’re largely irrelevant,” one of the investigating police officers tells Collins in the opening scenes of the episode. Collins can do nothing but scoff. It’s that thinking that he has to clearly combat throughout his new career in Hope Not Hate, but it’s also a dangerous way of thinking that allows men like the ones in this series to carry on unashamedly abusing people of colour. 

If there’s one reason to watch The Walk-In, though, it really is for Graham’s performance as Collins. While we know Graham can turn his hand to any leading role, this is a challenging one. He not only has to embody the passion and intellect of a journalist and public speaker, he also has to confront his past as a neo-Nazi regularly. He has to move his family from town to town in a bid to protect them, reckon with his own past of aggression and assaults, all the while trying to tap into that knowledge to take down National Action, the increasingly popular extremist group.

Where the episode feels heavy in the subject matter, Collins’ work and Hope Not Hate provide a small sliver of light. This opening episode isn’t a typical high-octane watch where you’ll be left scrambling to binge-watch more. If anything, it outlines rising racist sentiment almost a little too well. But it’s easy to see how this could turn into a chilling slow burn of a drama.

We know it’ll only get darker the further into the series, we get but with Graham at the helm, there should be more poignant and powerful moments aplenty.

The Walk-In premieres tonight on ITV at 9pm, with episodes airing for the next five consecutive weeks. It will also be available to watch as a boxset on ITV Hub following the transmission of the first episode. 

Images: ITV