The Gold

Stealing gold is only the beginning of the problem in The Gold. The larger story is how conspicuous stolen wealth can be moved, disguised and turned into something its new owners can spend.

The Brink's-Mat robbery provides the starting point for a drama about laundering and investigation. Hugh Bonneville and Jack Lowden are among a cast that gives the transactions personalities: people have different appetites for risk, and those differences matter when they need one another's cooperation.

The pleasure is in following the money without losing sight of the people handling it. Rather than treating the robbery as a self-contained spectacle, the series explores the mess left behind. It is a dramatised account, with the usual distinction between documented events and reconstructed private scenes. Crime-drama viewers who enjoy the business side of an operation have a good reason to look at this one.