Breakout

With COVID-19 and sewage in the water supply still in the news and the authorities fretting over jumps between species here's a timely revival of this prescient BBC drama that treats it's audience as grown-ups and keeps you guessing whether the crisis will be result of pesticides or a baccular virus.

The title suggests a gritty prison drama, but after an opening sequence of a man scaling a wall in a balaclava and entering a laboratory full of bottles labelled 'Test Sample' it then proceeds by stealth to a lad developing a cough, quickly gaining in drama when the next to succumb is an asthmatic with a weak heart.

Director Moira Armstrong adroitly marshals a well-defined set of characters beset by money worries and office politics who look upon animal rights activists as a nuisance; while Samantha Bond refreshingly plays a female scientist who actually seems to understand the subject.