Small Town, Big Riot; Industry

“Mobeen Azhar’s journalism clearly illustrates how latent racism is made blatant by online gossip, but he doesn’t stop there and, although his inquisitive open-mindedness shouldn’t be unusual, he provides a fuller picture than that offered by the nation’s self-interested press and compromised politicians last summer.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“Azhar spent a lot of the first hour of the film wandering the streets of Kirkby, hoping someone would talk to him. They did, but it didn’t give the impression that the documentary had been well researched. Many times, we watched Azhar ring a potential interviewee, only for the call to be ignored, leaving the journalist to leave a pleading voicemail. It might be an insight into the reality of boots-on-the-ground journalism, but it didn’t exactly make for fascinating television.”
Emily Baker, The i

“He was admirably industrious, but didn’t tell us much that we we couldn’t have guessed. Many people — the council, the police, young men facing charges after the riot — refused to talk to Mobeen. Who can blame them when a misplaced word might make matters worse? So he was often reduced to driving round the town to the accompaniment of dramatic background music.”
Roland White, Daily Mail

“This is BBC investigative journalism at its most pitiful. It is made in the style of most BBC Three documentaries, which is to say that most of the screen time is taken up by the presenter – in this case Mobeen Azhar – being filmed driving a car or hanging up shirts in a hotel room. These are the boring bits of reporting that proper documentaries wouldn’t consider worthy of broadcast.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Industry has long been a talked-about show that no one watched. This season elevates it to another plane entirely. The show has grown in scope and ambition, while never forgetting its roots as a stylish workplace drama. Taking any show ‘beyond the precinct’ is always a gamble, and normally a mistake. Here, it pays off handsomely.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“At times Industry can be a difficult watch. Attempts to unriddle class dynamics within the sector butt up against the core critique of gamified, high-risk capitalism. The writing sometimes tries too hard to capture the verbosity that marks out writers like Armando Iannucci and Jesse Armstrong. But what writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay are brilliant at is creating a pressure cooker on the trading floor, where each character is both enemy and ally to one another.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent