Unfinished Business:Rules Of The Game.

"She wants to save the world. Not profit from its demise" - Sam Thompson on Maya Benshaw.

It is this one, almost throwaway, comment that perhaps best encapsulates what is at the heart of the problem with both Fly Dynamic, the fictional sportswear company that provides the setting for writer Ruth Fowler and director Jennifer Sheridan's new drama Rules of the Game (BBC1/iPlayer), and with the corporate world of capitalism more generally.

The Ayn Randian idea that profit and self-advancement are the only worthwhile goals in life. The Thatcherite belief that there is no such thing as society. These ideas are failing us mentally, physically, and even economically. But, at Fly Dynamic, they are only part of the problem.The company, despite its clean glass and steel offices and its gender neutral bathrooms, is mired in old school chauvinism, toxic masculinity, and a culture of bullying.

The series begins with a death at the workplace. The victim, unidentified to the viewers, has fallen from the second floor but did they jump or were they pushed? COO Sam Thompson (Maxine Peake) is the one who finds the body and she is the one who narrates the entire story, in a series of flashbacks, to DI Eve Preston (Susan Wokoma).

The story she tells is a long and complicated one which, of course, throws up plenty of dark secrets and plenty of people who would have a reason for committing a murder. It begins with the arrival of a new HR director, Maya Benshaw (Rakhee Thakrar), at Fly Dynamic and it widens to take in the owners of that company, their families, their employees, and the families of their employees.

Fly Dynamic had been started by the now deceased, and unseen, Harry Jenkins. His wife Anita (Alison Steadman on fine form) is the matriarch that has replaced the patriarch but the day to day running is done by their sons. The business like Owen (Ben Batt) and the more feckless, yet seemingly more personable, Gareth (Kieran Bew).

The simmering sibling rivalry between Owen and Gareth is echoed in the relationship between their wives. Owen's wife Vanessa (Zoe Tapper), or Ness, is overly confident, sexed up, and tactless to the point of cruelty. Gareth's wife, Carys (Katherine Pearce), is polite, frustrated, and suffers with a lack of confidence.

Living in a small community, which a cursory Google reveals to be Frodsham in Cheshire, where everyone knows each other's names, and each other's business, doesn't help. What happens at 'cheese club' doesn't always stay in cheese club.

Owen, Gareth, and Sam (who has been with the company so long, and risen so high, she is almost considered family) pride themselves on the fact that Fly Dynamic have an exceptionally low staff turnover but Maya doesn't necessarily see this as a good thing and looks to change the work culture by bringing in yoga sessions and free ice cream days.

Maya's suspicions are first aroused by the presence of one distinctly unhappy employee. Tess (Callie Cooke) is not just unhappy at work, she's deeply unhappy in general. She drinks heavily, she's sleeping with a junior staff member - Khalil (Mohammed Mansaray), and she constantly creates problems for the company.

Yet she is insistent that, at a time when the company is looking to go public, they will never get rid of her because she knows too much. Much of her unhappiness seems to stem from the moment her friend, and fellow employee, Amy (Amy Leeson) died in mysterious circumstances following what appears to be a typical boozy night out for Fan Dynamic.

Not only does Amy's death remain unresolved, it remains almost taboo to discuss it. There is, quite clearly, some very wrong, and very dark, history in this family firm. Why did the former HR guy, Hugh (Rory Keenan), leave in such haste? What has happened between Owen and Gareth to create such tension? Why doesn't Sam's daughter, Gemma (Megan Parkinson), get any answers when she asks who her father is? 

When Maya starts to look too deeply into some of these questions she makes enemies and ends up getting her car keyed. It's not that Maya's life is picture perfect in the first place. Behind the motivational tapes and yoga, she's taking Xanax and living alone with her hairless cat Audrey. She has a restraining order against her coercive ex-husband Luke (Tom Forbes) yet her well meaning, but misguided, mum (Sudha Bhuchar) keeps opening the door to Luke to re-enter her life.

It all adds up to an addictive drama that takes in themes of alcoholism, drug abuse, toxicity, menopause, capitalism, women's safety in the work place and in wider society, consent, and, perhaps most of all, closure.

As a vaping, grey marl clad, Sam tells her story to no nonsense DI Preston she moves from aggressive to defensive to matter of fact. Rules of the Game, the drama, provides a similar emotional rollercoaster ride. At times it feels a little far fetched but this journey into the world of corporate sleaze is one that can be thoroughly enjoyed via the safety of your television screen. It's not a world you'd want to live in.