Jimmy McGovern's Time returns for a third series set in a young offender institution

British writer Jimmy McGovern has moved his BBC prison drama Time into a young offender institution (YOI) for its third series. The first two series told stories from men's and women's prisons. McGovern suggests this third run will be the last. The Guardian's reporter visited the set in Downpatrick, near Belfast in Northern Ireland.

The fictional institution and its inmates

The story takes place in a fictional prison, HMP Alderwick. A former school stands in for much of its interior, while some scenes were shot at the former HMP Belfast, now called Crumlin Road Gaol, and at HMP Hydebank Wood, which still operates as a young offender centre.

The teenage inmates include James (Louis McCartney), estranged from his parents after an act they apparently cannot forgive. Peter (Ollie McNulty) is one of five on remand for the killing of an innocent man. Christopher (Chukwubuikem Molokwu) has not seen his Kenyan mother since he was four. He has a stammer, as McGovern does, and her limited English makes communication between them almost impossible.

The adults

David Tennant plays Bailey, a veteran prison officer who, after 35 years in the service, has become thoroughly disillusioned. He feels prisons now merely hold boys in place rather than rehabilitate them, with too little staff and too few opportunities. Siobhan Finneran plays chaplain Marie-Louise, who is in a crisis of faith after her affair with a Catholic priest ended.

McGovern says that since Covid, measures such as 23-hour bang-ups, once a last resort, have been used with growing frequency.

Debutants and real-life experience

For several of the young cast, this is their first acting job. McCartney is the exception: he is a Tony nominee for the stage production Stranger Things: the First Shadow. He says the time he spent in a real cell during filming had a profound effect on him. The first series of Time aired in 2021.