This City is Ours: James Nelson-Joyce on the ‘Scouse Sopranos’

In This City Is Ours, Liverpool actor James Nelson-Joyce plays a leading gang member who is struggling to balance his criminal career and family life, against a backdrop of changing modern masculinity.

So it's not hard to see why the new BBC drama has been dubbed by reviewers as the "Scouse Sopranos" – with reference to the acclaimed US mafia boss Tony and his equally conflicting set-up.

Nelson-Joyce plays the notorious Michael Kavanagh, who works for drug lord and lifelong friend Ronnie Phelan, played by Sean Bean. And the plot focuses on the power struggle between Michael and Ronnie's son Jamie – played by Nelson-Joyce's real life football friend and fellow Scouser Jack McMullen – as to who will take over the business when the top dog retires to Spain, via the Wirral.

Inconveniently though, Michael falls in love with Diana (Hannah Onslow). The couple are trying for a baby but due to his low sperm count need to try IVF to start a family.

It's not an ideal environment for domestic bliss to blossom – or good for Michael's street cred – but it does provide the scene for the 36-year-old actor's "most amazing" TV experience to date.

"It's about Michael allowing himself to be vulnerable," Nelson-Joyce tells BBC News.

"Because a lot of men put up this brave wall where it's like, I can't be seen to be that person," he adds. "It's took Diana to be that breath of fresh air in his life."

He believes it is important to show on screen how "we are allowed to change".

"Because Michael's identity throughout has been as Ronnie's right-hand man, so he's always been the one you don't mess with.

"Whereas for the first time in his life, he's allowing himself to be who he wants to be; this loving partner who's reliable, who's safe and who doesn't lie to his partner."

Original Article