EPISODE
The Virtues - Season 1
This dramatic series revolves around a man named Joseph, a young man obsessed with a past that he has tried to forget so much. He decided to travel to Ireland to face memories of his childhood in the care system. In Ireland, Joseph meets Anna, his sister, whom he has not seen since childhood, where her husband Anna is wary of allowing Joseph to stay and work in their company. Joseph is forced to confront the demons of his past directly when he meets Craig, a man who completely changes Joseph's life.
December 14, 2003 in Dublin, Ireland
7 February 1970, Rochdale, Lancashire, England, UK
11 September 1987, Siauliai, Lithuanian SSR, USSR [now Lithuania]
3 November 1957, Liverpool, England, UK
20 October 1959, Dublin, Ireland
3 August 1973, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
May 16, 2019
The pacing is extraordinary, a veering death drive on a road with no finish line in sight.
May 16, 2019
In Joseph, director Shane Meadows, co-writer Jack Thorne and actor Stephen Graham have created a character strobing with vulnerability whose struggles feel achingly real.
May 16, 2019
Unspoken pain infuses every scene, every gesture and expression from Graham and in doing so lays the foundations, surely, to do justice to the suffering of victims everywhere.
May 16, 2019
It's not an easy watch, as much for the feeling of rubbernecking a private hell as for its gut-puking moments. But it's that very intimacy that makes The Virtues special.
May 16, 2019
Graham is an actor of raw emotional power, nakedly honest and unpredictable, but I spent whole minutes of the first episode wanting to be anywhere else but in a room with him, as he suffered and tried to deal with his suffering.
May 16, 2019
There are few actors you could trust with so much screen time, especially with such a pared back and naturalistic script.