'The Way' Trailer Is One Part Fairytale, One Part Revolution

In the trailer for the upcoming BBC drama The Way, dystopian unrest, revolution, and survival are a family affair, and possibly a cautionary tale. The three-part drama marks the television directorial debut of Good Omens star Michael Sheen, who created the series alongside James Graham (Sherwood) and Adam Curtis (HyperNormalisation). It follows the story of a family in the industrial Welsh town of Port Talbot, who find themselves caught up in an extraordinary chain of events when a civil uprising essentially sparks a civil war. As a militarized border springs up between England and Wales and makes crossing between the two impossible, the Driscolls must find a way to escape the country they've always called home and confront various interfamily issues. 

The series has been called ambitious, powerful, and surprising, as well as an emotional and darkly humorous story about what it means to be faced with impossible choices. 

The Way stars Steffan Rhodri (Steeltown Murders), Mali Harries (Hinterland), Sophie Melville (The Pact), Callum Scott Howells (It's A Sin), and Sheen lead the cast as the Driscoll family, with Maja Laskowska (Baptiste) as a young woman who finds herself caught up in the family’s escape, and Luke Evans (The Pembrokeshire Murders) as the mercenary in pursuit of them. 

The series ensemble also includes Tom Cullen (The Gold), Danny Sapani (The Diplomat), Mark Lewis Jones (Outlander), Paul Rhys (A Discovery of Witches), Erin Richards (The Crown), Aneurin Barnard (1899), Catherine Ayers (Keeping Faith), Patrick Baladi (Line of Duty), Georgia Tennant (Staged), Jonathan Nefydd (Pobol y Cwm), and Matthew Aubrey (World on Fire). 

Here’s the synopsis:

Ambitious, powerful and surprising, The Way taps into the social and political chaos of today’s world by imagining a civil uprising which begins in a small industrial town. Fleeing unrest, The Driscolls are forced to escape the country they’ve always called home and the certainties of their old lives. Will they be overwhelmed by their memories of the past, or will they lay their ghosts to rest and take the risk of an unknown future?

The Way is directed by Sheen, written by Graham, and produced by Derek Ritchie. Graham, Sheen, and Curtis join Bethan Jones as executive producers for Red Seam, with Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC and Nick Andrews for BBC Cymru Wales. The series was filmed in and around Port Talbot, Wales, which also happens to be Sheen’s hometown and is essentially a character in its own right within the story's world. 

“The thing about Port Talbot is that it’s haunted by ghosts of uprisings past,” Sheen tells The Guardian. “It’s got that dormant rebel spirit in its DNA. The whole town feels like a dragon slumbering in a cave.”

The town was the site of protests earlier this year over the decision to close down the two main blast furnaces at the Port Talbot steelworks, a move that unions insist will cost nearly 3,000 jobs and devastate the larger south Wales community, as well as the steelmaking industry within the U.K. So the idea of massive unrest in a place like this isn’t as far fetched as one might initially assume. 

“There’s something satisfying about turning the place where you grew up into an apocalyptic bombsite,” Sheen says. “Destroying your hometown. But destroying it with love.”

The Way premieres on BBC One on Monday, February 19, 2024 (with all episodes dropping simultaneously on iPlayer). The drama does not yet have an American distributor, but that will hopefully be rectified soon.