Crushed By The Wheels Of:Industry.

There are very few work environments that seem as toxic, as competitive, as unpleasant, and as prone to bullying as investment banking so do we, as a society, do anything to try and end that unpleasantness, that bullying, or that toxicity? Of course we don't. We make all the right noises, send people on the right courses, talk about corporate responsibility, and brandish our Investors in People mugs as if they hold totemic powers but, behind all that, we do absolutely nothing.

In fact, we celebrate the culture of the city by making the people who work there, often pushing abstracted sums of money around on computer screens while wearing identikit suits in mostly identikit offices furnished in chrome and glass, some of the very richest people in the world. They bring nothing to society, they improve no lives, and often they make some lives a misery. So, yes, of course they are celebrated.

We live in a capitalist society and investment banking is capitalism writ large. With that in mind the recent eight part series Industry (BBC2/iPlayer), set in London's square mile and in a resolutely pre-Covid environment - social distancing is not a phrase you'll hear, could have been as depressing, as soulless, and as unedifying as a two hour business meeting with people you'd happily never speak to once again in your life.

The fact it was anything but that was down to the fantastic writing of Mickey Down and Konrad Kay and the terrific performances of all the leading players in a drama that simply can't be described without the word ensemble in front of it. The premise of the series is that five young graduates have arrived at Pierpoint & Co and that they are competing for an unspecified number of permanent positions within this supposedly respected firm.

Harper (Myha'la Harold), a young black woman from New York, seems cool under pressure but also appears to hide a secret and one that may be far more devastating for her career than any revelation that she enjoys Zoom sex with an on/off boyfriend over the Atlantic. She's made friends with Yasmin (Marisa Abela), a beautiful Arabic and Spanish speaking lady whose relationship with the hapless hippy Seb (Jonathan Barnwell) seems to be floundering as their lives take different directions and their moral curves bend away from each other.

Robert (Harry Lawtey) isn't the type to let morality hinder his progress. Decked out like an aggressive Foxtons estate agent his penchant for late nights, booze, bugle, and shagging seems far more likely to be his downfall while his friend and flatmate Gus (David Jonsson) seems to be moving in the right direction by impressing his colleagues with his ability and quiet confidence. The fact that he regularly fellates Pierpoint's research analyst Will (Theo Tuck) doesn't look likely to hold him back either.

The fifth of these Apprentice like contestants is the bodywarmer clad, sleeping in the office, Pro-Plus popping Hari (Nabhaan Rizwan) who immediately struggles with the environment and soon finds himself in a very bad way indeed. How Pierpoint handle Hari's situation is predictable - arse covering essentially - but how Harper, Yasmin, Robert, and, most of all, Gus handle it feeds into the very heart of the drama. 

In liminal spaces like corridors, lifts, and, most of all, spotlessly bland toilets we see these five young graduates interact with older hands like Daria (Freya Greenock), Sara (Priyanga Burford), Rishi (Sagar Radia), and Greg (Ben Lloyd-Hughes, a cross between Roger Federer and Ezra Koenig). The older hands, variously, mentor the young starters. They flirt with them, they date them, they take credit for their work, and in the case of Kenny (Conor MacNeill) they do all of that and more.

Kenny's the Vice President of Foreign Exchange Sales and he's an easily loathed pint sized pot of insecurity, resentment, and frustration. The way he treats Yasmin leads him ever closer to a disciplinary but he always manages to save face by trotting out the old excuses that he's just having a laugh and it's just good old fashioned office banter.

Conor MacNeill's brilliantly realised Kenny is, sadly, an all too believable character to anyone who has worked in any office job at any level anywhere. Derek Riddell's Clement Cowan, on the other hand, is trickier to get your head round. An old school banker who still reads the newspaper in print form, refuses to speak to new starters until they've been there for a year or two, and pisses with his pants round his ankles like Pepe the fucking Frog or something.

Clement, however, is not all he seems and neither is Eric (Ken Leung). Eric's a big manager at Pierpoint and it's constantly suggested and tacitly stated, though never really explained why, he has the power to make and break a career. He takes Harper under his wing but an incident when he locks her in an office during a meeting causes ructions within the working environment and Eric's true character, or so we think, comes to the surface.

The dynamics between the new breed and the old guard create interesting moral dilemmas and more than a few tricky situations at the parties and drinks evenings that soon become the social life of a young investment banker. But it's the dynamics between the younger players, and the sex between some of them too, that's had the programme compared, not unreasonably, to nineties sensation This Life.

Much like This Life, Industry will probably look dated very quickly and most of the main characters are morally reprehensible personality vacuums who'd sell their grandmother for an office on a higher floor and a bag of Bolivian marching powder. Yet, that aside, you can't help rooting for them. Or at least some of them. I hope it just wasn't her looks that swayed it for me but I found myself on the side of Yasmin even when she treated her, admittedly dopey, boyfriend Seb abysmally.

As with The Apprentice (a programme, let's not forget, that launched the media career of Katie Hopkins and helped propel Donald Trump into the White House) I couldn't care less which of the graduates got jobs in the end and I didn't even care who got sucked off or licked out by who but I did, for some reason, care about what happened in the drama.

That can only be testament to great writing and great acting. I'm glad I watched this series. I really enjoyed it. I'm even more glad that I don't live in the same world as these people. I'd fucking hate it.