Bad Girls - Series One - Volume 1 [VHS] [1999]

The most impressive new drama series to begin on British TV last year, Bad Girls is set in the imposing confines of Larkhall Women's Prison. The first four episodes of the show are collected here, so anyone who got hooked on the series as it evolved should seize this chance to find out how it all started, while those who were banged up from the beginning will relish the opportunity to relive these first glimpses of these memorable characters.

They include: Nicky Wade, serving a life sentence for killing the policeman who raped her girlfriend; Shell Dockley, the loud-mouthed hard-case murderer who rules the wing; Helen Stewart, the idealistic new Wing Governor whose liberal ideas bring her into conflict with the old guard amongst the warders, and Jim Fenner, Helen's sworn enemy and all-round villain of the piece, an old-school screw who uses vicious means to keep the women in order. All four, like most of the key players in the series, are played by performers who are relative unknowns, which adds considerably to the programme's credibility and impact.

Some have compared Bad Girls to cult Australian drama Prisoner:Cell Block H, and there are indeed similarities. Both shows offer strong roles to accomplished actresses, both thrive on portraying a richer range of women than conventional, domestic dramas allow, and both are unashamedly melodramatic in the way they grab and wrench at your emotions. Bad Girls pulls no punches. It takes, if you'll pardon the pun, no prisoners. Emotive, gripping and brilliantly made, it's a TV classic of our times. --Andy Medhurst

The three concluding episodes of the first series of Bad Girls, in which all the tensions and intrigues that fill the grim confines of Larkhall women's prison reach an exciting and tantalising climax. Nikki and Helen are drawn ever closer together, despite Helen's impending marriage. The naïve young Officer Rose learns the hard way never to be taken in by a hardened crook. Tragic junkie Zara tries to put her life back together so that her child won't be taken away from here. The Two Julies continue to bring a little light relief into the wing; and Shell Dockley, that hardest of hard-faced inmates, vows revenge on Fenner, the corrupt office who has double-crossed her with his offers of preferential treatment in return for sexual favours. Some of the stories go the way you'll expect, others have startling, even shocking twists that point the way to the second series, and all of them are satisfyingly punchy, involving and atmospheric. --Andy Medhurst