Ivan Radford | On 01, Jun 2025

Season 2 premieres on BBC One on 8th June 2025. This review is based on Season 1.

From the Great Train Robbery to the Hatton Garden robbery, everyone loves a good heist story – there’s been no shortage of them on our screens. The BBC has really struck gold, however, with its drama The Gold, which tells the story of what was at the time the world’s biggest ever score: £26 million worth of gold bullion, stolen in 1983. That might not sound like much now, and 1983 might sound like a long time ago, but what’s remarkable about the job is that its ripples are still spreading today, with some of the gold still unaccounted for.

The series starts with the theft, which started out as a cash grab, only for the six armed robbers to be surprised by what they found in the Brink’s-Mat security depot near London’s Heathrow Airport. Stumbling across that gold is both a lucky turn of fortune and a cruel burden, as they soon realise they have too much to sell off and pass on without being detected.

Neil Forsyth, who also penned Scottish crime drama Guilt, brilliantly captures the daunting challenge facing the criminals – but also immerses us in the impossible task facing the police, as they try to track down the gold and its handlers in a sea of corruption, now with an ever bigger prize tempting the fish to turn a blind eye. By exploring both sides of the crime at the same time, Forsyth skilfully paints a portrait of greed, ambition and determination that spans several shades of grey and unites people from all walks of life by sheer tenacity and perseverance.

Hugh Bonneville is fantastic as DCI Boyce, a rare strait-laced cop who’s been around for long enough to know how rare he is. He brings a frosty edge to his do-gooder, which turns his moral anchor into a formidable opponent as well as a reliable veteran – you like him, but you wouldn’t want to be in a room alone with him. He’s joined by the equally excellent Charlotte Spencer and Emun Elliott as DI Jennings and DI Brightwell, who are brought in as good eggs by Boyce – and are at once eager to prove themselves and intimidated by their new boss.

On the other side of the fence is a similarly nuanced bunch of colourful characters. Tom Cullen is understated as the overlooked everyman John Palmer, quietly smelting gold in a shed. Jack Lowden once again proves himself a major star in waiting and future national treasure as Kenneth Noye, a South London chancer who has the swaggering ego needed to attempt such an audacious crime, but is constantly treated by that same ambition. Somewhere between the two is the perfectly slippery Dominic Cooper as Edwyn, a solicitor with a knack for social climbing, even if his lack of taste, class and tact give him away – the costumes are all nicely observed, but his are particularly telling, as his suits and suits never feel like a comfortable fit.

Director Aneil Karia keeps things slickly moving at a gripping pace, but also patiently assembles the puzzle so that we get a sense of the scale of the operation. It’s one that extends from the capital to across the country and into an international ring of money laundering and stretches on from days, weeks and months into decades. Even in the riveting initial episodes that balance human grit with a gob-smacking sense of scope, we never lose the awareness that we’re only just dipping a toe in the water. The result is a magnetic, richly drawn thriller that could run for seasons and seasons – it’s an investment that pays off again and again.

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