While Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video throw dozens of series and movies at us every month, Apple TV+ takes a more thoughtful approach.
It chooses to concentrate on giving subscribers fewer series with episodes released on a weekly basis rather than in one go. The emphasis is on quality over quantity, and those who have enjoyed the excellent Severance, Ted Lasso, Bad Sisters, Black Bird and For All Mankind would agree it’s an approach worth taking.
Sons Of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam is the star of Apple TV+’s latest classy drama, Shantaram, in which he plays former heroin addict Lin Ford, who escapes incarceration in Australia for robbery in order to reinvent himself as a doctor in the heart of Bombay, India.
On the run, travelling under a false identity and attempting to create a new life centred around freedom, Lin’s well-intentioned exploits, set against the beautiful, moody backdrop of Bombay, and sense of optimism act as his guiding forces.
It is a tale that, on paper, might sound far-fetched. However, as with some of history’s most enthralling endeavours, the tale’s origins are firmly rooted in reality.
It’s based on the book by former convict Gregory David Roberts, who Hunnam met prior to filming. Travelling to Jamaica, the place Roberts now calls home, in a bid to learn more, Hunnam spent four intense days with the author, a man he describes as “the smartest human being I’ve ever met.”
In Shantaram, Hunnam’s character wrestles with redemption and what it means.
“More and more, I don’t know if I believe in any absolutes,” admits 42-year-old Hunnam. “I feel like life is all as much an arena of potential as it is actual. I can redeem myself from my past sins at lunchtime, and have completely messed it up by dinner, you know?”
Adapted into an initial run of 12 episodes, Behind Her Eyes and Hannibal creator Steve Lightfoot says Roberts is a complex man and Hunnam’s character is someone to whom we can all relate on some level.
“He’s a man who knows that things he did were wrong and has genuinely wrestled with the past and in dealing with that,” says Lightfoot.
“I think that’s sort of universal to all of us on some scale. We haven’t all robbed a bank, but we’ve all had things that we just want to try and get past and be better than.”
Shantaram premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday
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