Virdee

“Amit Dhand’s show is a minor study in masculinity as well as in racial, religious and intra-community divisions, and it does all this with a light but wholly assured touch. And it is, throughout, tremendous fun; the action moves fast and touches on most of the traditional thriller tropes only to give them a fresh new spin as it flies past.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“For me the family tension is, by some measure, the most compelling part of this thriller, based on AA Dhand’s noirish novels, because I’ll level with you … I’m not loving the violence. The family stuff is strong, but this kind of barbarity isn’t my bag.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The six episodes trudge a familiar, gritty line recognisable from The Sweeney to Luther, while occasionally, via its penchant for guns and warehouses, straying into low-budget British gangster flick territory. It feels like an opportunity missed. Virdee is a serviceable, if slightly schlocky crime drama, but the feeling is that the 2025 UK City of Culture deserves something of greater depth.”
Chris Bennion, The Telegraph

“I spent the first five minutes of the show hoping biliously that the rest of the hour was going to settle down. It got worse before it got better, with a dose of nonsensical violence. All that might be forgivable if this six-part series were some wildly cartoonish thriller, like last year’s Black Doves, starring Keira Knightley on Netflix. But swathes of this show are mired in domestic tensions, with Virdee fretting because his mum and dad aren’t speaking to him.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The thriller genre has been overwhelmed lately with cosy crime dramas, where the heroes are inevitably white and middle-class men, wisecracking while investigating horrific murders. Virdee is a welcome pushback against that trend – not just because its lead character is of South Asian heritage but also because it isn’t afraid to be grown up and serious.”
Ed Power, The i