--- title: "Stephen" year: 2021 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/stephen" fi1m_id: "stephen" imdb_id: "tt15122138" tmdb_id: 132378 wikidata_id: "Q108570146" fi1m_score: 72 critics_reviews: 2 published: "2026-10-07T19:31:51.452079+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T19:32:04.279990+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Stephen (2021) Created by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Clive Driscoll, Joe Cottrell Boyce · 45m · Drama ## Identity Stephen - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/stephen - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** stephen - **IMDb ID:** tt15122138 - **TMDB ID:** 132378 - **Wikidata ID:** Q108570146 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15122138/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/132378, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q108570146 **Fi1m score: 72** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Steve Coogan plays a decent copper so quietly you keep waiting for the joke, and it never comes > A careful, unshowy three-part account of the detective who reopened the Stephen Lawrence case, carried by Steve Coogan’s refusal to perform and Sharlene Whyte’s refusal to forgive. The middle episode sags under paperwork, but it earns the evening. ## Synopsis Stephen Lawrence, eighteen years old and black, is stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993. Thirteen years later the case is cold, the suspects’ names are known to everyone and nobody has been convicted. DCI Clive Driscoll (Steve Coogan), a Metropolitan Police detective with no profile and no obvious reason to care, asks to look at the file again. He has to persuade his superiors, among them Cressida Dick (Siân Brooke), that there is something worth finding, and he has to persuade Doreen Lawrence (Sharlene Whyte) and Neville Lawrence (Hugh Quarshie), who have spent those years being lied to and let down by his own force, that this time is different. He starts with the evidence bags. ## Review Thirteen years after Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham, a Metropolitan Police detective nobody has heard of asks to look at the case again. That is the whole of *Stephen*, three episodes of 45 minutes written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Joe Cottrell Boyce with Clive Driscoll himself, and directed by Alrick Riley. It is not about the murder. It is about the long, dull, decent work of a man who decided the file was not closed, and about a family who had heard that before. Steve Coogan plays Driscoll, and the casting sounds like a stunt until about four minutes in. He wears a bad suit and a worse haircut, speaks in a south London murmur, and says sorry to the Lawrences without once asking to be forgiven for it. There is no twinkle. When a colleague asks why he is bothering, he gives a flat, practical answer about the evidence, and you believe this is a man who does not need to be liked. We kept waiting for the Coogan we know to surface, and it is to his credit that he never does. Sharlene Whyte’s Doreen Lawrence is the series’ spine. She sits across tables from policemen with her hands folded and her face closed, and the drama never pretends she owes Driscoll anything. Hugh Quarshie, who played Neville Lawrence in Paul Greengrass’s 1999 film, plays him again, older and quieter, and the scenes between the two parents are the ones we found hardest to sit through. It moved us more than we expected, and we can say exactly where: the first time Driscoll is in Doreen’s front room, Whyte gives him nothing at all, not anger, not hope, just a stillness that says she has sat through this speech before. That stillness does more than any line in the script. Aaron Reid shoots it in the flat grey of south London office light, strip lamps and rain on windows, and never reaches for anything prettier. Jamie Lapsley’s police rooms are stacked with old box files; the Lawrence house is tidy and dim, and the contrast does work the script then does not have to. Segun Akinola’s score stays low, mostly held strings under dialogue, and is sensible enough to stop when the family speaks. Helen Chapman cuts the investigation in short, patient steps, a bag opened, a form signed, a call made, and the pace suits a story about a case nobody hurried over for thirteen years. The procedural stretches are where it is weakest. Jonjo O’Neill’s DI Shaun Keep and the rest of Driscoll’s team are decent company but thin on the page; we learn what they do and nothing of who they are. Siân Brooke’s Cressida Dick is given a few scenes of careful institutional caution and no more, so the Met’s resistance arrives as paperwork rather than people. The second episode spends a long time in laboratories, with Sam Troughton and Jay Simpson doing unshowy work over evidence bags, and the drama goes quiet in a way that is faithful and slightly airless. The reviews so far are split down the middle. One found it cold, a police procedural that keeps the family at the edge of the frame; the other found it riveting and compassionate. We are closer to the second. This is the Lawrences’ story told through the one officer who treated it as a job to be done rather than a scandal to be managed, and keeping its voice down is how it shows them respect. But the first complaint is not wrong about that middle hour. Where it ends is a matter of public record and we will not rehearse it here. What the series is for is the getting there, and the getting there is slow, well acted and honest about how little the police deserved the family’s patience. Watch it in one evening, not three; it is built as a single piece and the gaps would let the anger cool. *Fi1m score 72, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Stephen worth watching?** *Stephen* is worth watching for anyone with patience for slow, honest police work, and we scored it 72. Steve Coogan plays DCI Clive Driscoll without a trace of the comic we know, and Sharlene Whyte's Doreen Lawrence gives the three parts their spine. The middle episode spends too long over evidence bags, so watch it in one evening rather than three. **How long is Stephen, and what is it rated?** *Stephen* has episodes of about 45m. It is a drama series. **Where can I watch Stephen in the US?** *Stephen* is streaming on The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV in the US, and it is also available to buy from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Stephen compare to Spotlight?** *Stephen* and [*Spotlight*](https://film.one/film/spotlight) are both dramas about institutional failure where the heroism is paperwork and refusing to stop, but *Spotlight* is the more absorbing piece and the better made of the two. *Stephen* is quieter and closer to home, and its strongest scenes belong to the Lawrence family rather than the investigators. Choose *Spotlight* for a tighter film; choose *Stephen* for Coogan and Whyte. ### Reviews we read (2) - **The Guardian**, Lucy Mangan (80/100, inferred): Mangan finds the drama riveting and compassionate, while noting that Coogan can seem almost too good to be true. She praises how it keeps the Lawrence family’s grief and lost years at the heart of the story. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/aug/30/stephen-review-steve-coogan-leads-the-quest-for-justice-in-lawrence-case) - **The i Paper**, Emily Baker (30/100, inferred): Baker finds the series a cold, unemotional police procedural rather than an effective tribute. She criticizes its focus on the detective and his team at the expense of the Lawrence family and the story’s significance. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/stephen-itv-review-doreen-lawrence-steve-coogan-clive-driscoll-true-story-1175166) ## Details - **Created by:** Frank Cottrell Boyce, Clive Driscoll, Joe Cottrell Boyce - **Creator:** Frank Cottrell Boyce, Clive Driscoll, Joe Cottrell Boyce - **Director:** Alrick Riley - **Cinematography:** Aaron Reid - **Editor:** Helen Chapman - **Music:** Segun Akinola - **Production design:** Jamie Lapsley - **Producer:** Madonna Baptiste - **Cast:** Steve Coogan as DCI Clive Driscoll; Sharlene Whyte as Doreen Lawrence; Hugh Quarshie as Neville Lawrence; Jonjo O'Neill as DI Shaun Keep; Jay Simpson as Peter Birdsall; Siân Brooke as Cressida Dick; Adil Ray as Imran Khan; Sam Troughton as Ed Jarman - **Runtime:** 45m - **Release (the US):** 30 August 2021 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzPEhO3iMs ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd - Apple TV: buy, hd *Checked 2026-10-07.* Also available in: AU, CA, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Murder of Stephen Lawrence* (1999): Paul Greengrass’s account of the first years, with Hugh Quarshie as Neville. - *Spotlight* (2015), Fi1m 85: Another drama where the heroism is phone calls, filing and refusing to stop. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/spotlight.md) - *When They See Us* (2019): Ava DuVernay on five wrongly accused boys and the police who built the case. - *Hillsborough* (1996): Jimmy McGovern’s furious, careful drama about families fighting an official story. - *Mangrove* (2020): Steve McQueen’s Notting Hill courtroom drama; the Met, twenty years before Eltham. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/stephen