Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ukweli Roach, Juliet Stephenson, Owen Teale, Annes Elwy, Sacha Dhawan, Iwan Rheon, Kezia Burrows, Ciarán Joyce, Gwïon Morris Jones, Anthony Webster, Sian Reese-Williams, Zadeiah Campbell-Davies, Emily Adara, Oscar Coleman, Amanda Drew, Luke Rhodri, Andy Eadie, Tim Treloar, Karl Johnson, Kai Owen, Mabil Jên Eustace, Simon Dwyer-Thomas.

There have been a multitude of tales brought to the television viewer’s attention which focus on the ferocity of being to be found within the psychopath, of the damaged, and those to whom society has itself bullied and tormented and then not understood why the dog that was kicked has turned and bitten back.

It is not that we love witnessing the devastation and chaos employed by those to whom have stepped into the shadows of the wild and primal actions; it’s a recognition of just how close we are to the moment where we step over the line of the acceptable behaviour and become that in which we pretend to steer clear of, but which we acknowledge that we are invested in of learning how to cope with the thoughts that blind us all.

Adapted by Megan Gallagher and combining two investigations, Mo Hyder’s Wolf sees protagonist detective Jack Caffrey haunted by the past and mindful of the parallels of the present as those who willingly terrify and destroy the lives of young people, children, who are by virtue of their age, only just able to start understanding what their own feelings are and how they deal with the anger, the ridicule, and the torment of others does to their own psyche.

The six-episode strong Wolf is a fascination of expression, it showcases the damage of the individual when placed in circumstances where the uncontrolled and feral have the opportunity to turn society and its rules on its head. For Jack Caffrey, played with a dynamic sense of unrestrained anger and subtly of discretion by Ukweli Roach, it is a damnation, a sense of the unholy practices displayed by the aggression and evil of his neighbour and the consuming case that has once been thought solved by officers in Wales, and humanity by its very nature is one framed as feral, untamed…savage.

To portray madness takes skill, to give it a reasonable face in the reveal is to excel, and perhaps of late there has been nobody finer to grasp that type of rage than Iwan Rheon, first in Game Of Thrones as the psychotic torturer Ramsey Bolton, and now as Molina in Wolf. With scenesthat bring an unyielding satisfaction alongside Sacha Dhawan, an actor who does not shy of taking a character down the route of the fierce and brutal maniac, Iwan Rheon brings close attention to the detail, to the unsuspecting pot boiler at hand.

A thriller of magnitude, of alarm, of glorious jeopardy, and one that in its conclusion shows that the wolf is not always the one to put the flock in danger, but the sheep that has learned to wield a knife, and the lamb that has lied on the wolf’s behalf.

Utterly compelling.

Ian D Hall