Pioneering 18th-century barrister William Garrow revisits the Old Bailey to champion the rights of prisoners against the power of the State, as BBC One's acclaimed drama Garrow's Law returns for a second series.

A year on

A year has passed since viewers last saw him and, in this time, Garrow's reputation for pioneering advocacy has intensified – but so too has his opposition to the legal and political establishment.

Cast

A stellar cast returns for the second series of RTS (Royal Television Society) award-winning Garrow's Law, lead by Andrew Buchan (Cranford, Party Animals), Alun Armstrong (New tricks, Little Dorrit), Lyndsey Marshal (Being Human, Rome), Aidan McArdle (Beautiful People, Jane Eyre) and Rupert Graves (Single Father, God On Trial).

New themes

Garrow's Law co-creator Tony Marchant (The Knight's Tale, Mark Of Cain, Crime & Punishment) explains the inspirations and motivations for the highly-anticipated second series:

"The issues we've explored in the second series are quite weighty – slavery, through a massacre prosecuted as an insurance fraud; the grave implications of being gay in the 18th century; the mistreatment of injured and disabled sailors in war campaigns; and, through Lady Sarah, the characterisation of women as property.

"There's an immediacy about the Old Bailey online records, with transcripts of the actual trials which makes it both a fantastic oral and written history of those who went through the Criminal justice system, a riveting insight into the lives of ordinary people who were caught up in it and, of course, a revelation about the way that law was conducted then.

"The older you get the more interested in the past you become and in this case it's been a real eye opener to see history recorded from the 'bottom up', from the mouths of those that history books normally ignore.

"Garrow is an impetuous and impassioned campaigner for justice within the law but realises that cannot happen without challenging the status quo in society. His anger and fervour sometimes makes him his own worst enemy but his loyalty to his mentor Southouse and his love for Lady Sarah make him vulnerable and prey to those enemies who are determined to remove him from the Old Bailey.

Episode 1

Garrow returns to the Old Bailey to champion the rights of prisoners against the power of the State. When 133 African prisoners are thrown overboard from a slave ship in suspicious circumstances, Garrow challenges the brutal trade that regards slaves as cargo. It is a case that amounts to a declaration of war.

Episode 2

Garrow defends a man accused of sodomy - a capital offence in Georgian England - and in doing so risks gossip and humiliation. Garrow finds himself embroiled in a sexual scandal of his own, accused of adultery with Sir Arthur Hill’s wife, Lady Sarah. Convinced of his client’s innocence, Garrow suspects his client is the victim of a particularly unpleasant and deadly form of 18th-Century blackmail.

Episode 3

Garrow discovers that wounded soldiers returning from war are being treated with contempt and abuse. And when one man bravely exposes the corruption at Greenwich Hospital, he is jailed. Southhouse accuses Garrow of mixed motives as he uses the case to attack the establishment and his personal rival, Sir Arthur Hill. Captain Baillie is governor of the Greenwich Hospital, and, unhappy with the treatment he witnesses, makes the brave decision to expose a series of corrupt practices that exist, including starvation rations, appalling accommodation and throwing out men who disagree. But Baillie is accused of malicious libel.

Episode 4

Pioneering barrister Garrow finds himself in the dock accused of adultery, but the evidence against him is a combination of innuendo, invention and lies. But with a moralistic judge and a critical public at hand, mere truth may not be enough as a defence. Garrow must fight for his honour, his future and for love, in the concluding part of the 18th-century drama. With the whole of fashionable London electrified by Garrow and Lady Sarah's scandal, their case is about to be played out in open court at Westminster Hall. At last, the pair must face their accusers and persuade the jury that Sir Arthur Hill's accusations are false and malicious.

◄ Back to Garrow’s Law main page

Photograph of Garrow’s Law stars Andrew Buchan and Alun Armstrong