BBC crime drama ‘Virdee’ is a ‘love letter to Bradford’

THE BBC have announced details of its new crime drama Virdee, which tells the tale of a Sikh police officer who chooses to marry a Muslim woman, with the result they are both cut off by their respective communities.

Not all the characters are fine upstanding members of the British Asian community who arrived in Britain with nothing, and gradually worked their way through sheer hard work into Eastern Eye’s Asian Rich List or the GG2 Power List.

In fact, some are deep into crime, and it is detective chief inspector Hardeep (‘Harry’) Virdee’s job to bring them to justice, except on the occasions he needs their help to crack a case.

Still, the six-part drama, each an hour long, can best be described as author AA Dhand’s love letter to Bradford. It is the city where he was born and bred, and whose mean streets inspired him to write his novels featuring Virdee – Streets of Darkness, published in 2016 after years of rejection slips; Girl Zero in 2017; City of Sinners in 2018; and One Way Out in 2019.

It is the third novel, City of Sinners, that the BBC have adapted for television. No date has been set for the broadcast of Virdee, but it could be early next year.

The opening of the novel is nothing if not gripping: “DCI Harry Virdee stared up the body. Suspended high in the air by a noose around her neck, she hung from the rafters of Bradford’s most beautiful bookshop. She was naked except for a red headscarf wrapped around her face, the decorative detail glistening in the early morning gloom. The quiet was marred only by the stifled cries of the manager, who had already identified one of her members of staff, Usma Khan.”

Virdee is notable for several reasons. It’s a British Asian crime drama set in the UK, which Dhand reckons is a first. Also, he did not let someone else write the screenplay. He did not want the cultural nuances to be mashed, so he insisted on writing the screenplay himself, and has also helped to produce the drama.

Bradford is the 2025 UK City of Culture, which will see a year-long celebration around the city and across the BBC.

Once a pharmacist who sold his business, Dhand turned to crime writing in 2006. His has been tortured and tortuous journey, but the show is now done and dusted. Dhand told Eastern Eye: “I feel really pleased with it. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved. I can’t wait for people to see it. I’m really thrilled by it.”

The drama takes in the Sikh-Muslim aspect of Virdee’s marriage to Saima: “It’s a crime story, but it’s multifaceted, so we do explore the personal side of the story.”

He explained there is a world of difference between writing a novel and turning it into a TV drama, even when the author is undertaking this complicated task.

“When making it into a TV episode, it’s about how to visually tell a story,” observed Dhand.

“It’s about how to use the landscape. the actors. In a novel, I can just tell you Harry Virdee is having a bad day or is stressed. On television you have to show it. It’s a really different medium in terms of how to do it. Basically, how do you tell a story visually, as opposed to how do you tell the story literally?”

About Virdee, shot on location in Bradford, he said: “I had a good team around me. Callum Dodgson is a very experienced script editor who helped me navigate the world of visual storytelling. It’s a much more collaborative process when it comes to television than the novel. That is literally just you and the computer. The TV script is a team trying to best visually show the story.”

There are differences between the novel and the TV drama: “I’ve adapted it quite heavily. I have moved away from the novel, because I saw the story could be developed in a more interesting way. That’s why it’s called an adaptation, because you have to take the core elements of the book – which I have done – but when it comes to visual storytelling, you have to adapt it to get the best out of that world.

“In the book, it’s Harry and his brother, Ronnie (involved in crime). But on TV, we have his brother-inlaw, Riaz, so I made a big decision there.” In the world of scriptwriters, Dhand felt there were not many equipped to handle an Asian crime drama.

“There are more now than when I started this journey in 2016,” he acknowledged. “But still there is not a deluge of brown scriptwriters out there that you have the ability to pick from 20 to 30 writers to find the best one. We are talking about a handful, but that does appear to be changing,”

Virdee was going to be played by Sacha Dhawan, but when he pulled out, he was replaced by Staz Nair (Rebel Moon, Game of Thrones). Aysha Kala has been cast as Saima, and Vikash Bhai as her brother, Riaz.

Other in the cast include Kulvinder Ghir and Sudha Bhuchar as Virdee’s parents, Ranjit and Jyoti. Virdee’s boss, DS Clare Conway, is played by Elizabeth Berrington, while Danyal Ismail is his partner, DS Amin. Nina Singh will play Tara Virdee, his niece and an up-andcoming crime reporter, and Manjinder Virk his sister, Mandip.

The Virdee cast also includes Tomi May, Andi Jashy, Hussina Raja, Yousef Naseer, Akshay Kumar, Madiha Ansari, Nichola Burley, Javed Khan and Ramon Tikaram. Setting the scene, the BBC said: “A turf war is brewing in the underbelly of the city with the police losing its grip on gang rivalries as they spill out onto the streets of Bradford. When a young dealer is murdered, Harry’s duty to uphold the law clashes with his links to members of the crime gangs.

“With his personal life in chaos, he must hunt down whoever is targeting those around him.

“While the killer holds the entire city to ransom, Harry realises that he is going to need the help of his brotherin-law Riaz, a drugs kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the county. Pulled together in an alliance that could ruin them both, Harry must make a choice – save himself and his family or save his city.

“He will not be able to do both.”