The North Water is a five-part historical drama about a whaling expedition into the Arctic in 1859, presented as a bleak and dangerous alternative to conventional swashbuckling sea adventures. Created and directed by Andrew Haigh and based on Ian McGuire’s 2016 novel, it follows a crew whose confinement, fear and past crimes intensify as the voyage becomes more perilous.

Stephen Graham plays Captain Arthur Brownlee, who leads the expedition alongside Jack O’Connell’s traumatised surgeon Patrick Sumner, Colin Farrell’s fugitive former criminal Henry Drax, and Sam Spruell’s first mate Michael Cavendish. The series uses the declining whale-oil trade as its historical setting, while exploring guilt, trauma, survival and whether people with violent pasts can change.