The creator of new, Bradford-set BBC crime drama, Virdee, has been singing the praises of his hometown ahead of the show’s debut next week.
Set and filmed in Bradford, Virdee tells the story of Detective Harry Virdee, a dedicated cop whose personal life is in chaos. He is in a loving relationship with his wife, Saima, but he is estranged from his family who disapprove of his interfaith marriage.
Read more: First pictures of Bradford crime thriller Virdee
A turf war is brewing in the underbelly of the city with the police losing its grip on gang rivalries as they spill out onto the streets of Bradford. When a young dealer is murdered, Harry’s duty to uphold the law clashes with his links to members of the crime gangs. He must hunt down whoever is targeting those around him.
Whilst the killer holds the entire city to ransom, Harry realises that he is going to need the help of his brother-in-law Riaz, a drugs kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the county. Pulled together in an alliance that could ruin them both, Harry must make a choice: save himself and his family or save his city. He will not be able to do both.
Speaking ahead of the show’s launch, AA Dhand (pictured right with the show’s star Staz Nair), a Bradford native who wrote the book on which the show is based, City of Sinners, as well as the screen adaptation, and also served as an executive producer on the show, said: “I selected most of the locations used in the series because I wanted to show my city off! I wanted to show the contrast between old Bradford and new Bradford. We go to City Park, where we have the biggest water fountains there are in England with the beautiful megastructure, which is new, fresh, colourful and vibrant. This is juxtaposed in the series with the nightmarish ruins and mills that haven’t been used for decades.”
Embarking on a Bradford history lesson, Dhand went on: “There’s so much history in these mills too, around 200 years ago Bradford was one of the most powerful and richest cities in Europe – we made the curtains that were in the White House! You see the decline of that industry in those mills but then you get to see new Bradford with City Park and the vibrancy of that. I was trying to choose locations that fed into the story which had an emotional backdrop to them that could mirror what was happening on screen.
“If something dark was happening we’d be in a mill and if something beautiful and light was happening, we’d be in City Park or Lister Park. Bradford is a really beautiful city.”
Dhand was also pleased to work closely with Screen Academy Bradford during production, ensuring that local people were invovled with making the show, and its legacy in the city was assured: “From the infancy of the show, we said that we wanted to have local people involved, to curate, develop and nurture local talent and create opportunities for them to enter this industry and see what it’s about. Bradford is one the youngest populations in England – we’ve got an enormous population that is going to be part of the future of this country,” he explained.
“This experience is new to me so I thought it would be great to bring other local people on the same journey. It was also an opportunity to lift the profile of the show so that, yes, we’re making a high-end show, but how can we embrace the people that this is about that are from the city of Bradford. As well as being entertained by the series, we’ve also left a legacy in Bradford with the Screen Academy Bradford. It’s also giving people from underrepresented communities the opportunity to explore a world that they very seldom have the opportunity to do, myself being one of them.”
All episodes of Virdee will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Monday 10 February. The first episode will air at 9pm on BBC One that evening, with episodes continuing to air terrestrially weekly.
