As part of a BBC radio special on the 20th anniversary of the seminal US TV series The Wire, I explained to Mark Kermode why the crime drama was significant then — and in 2022.
Listen to Discussion from 8:52
The image of a few young black people in a ghetto space — sitting on a sofa or playing basketball or on the corner — that is also the mise-en-scène of a lot of news reports, but David Simon goes somewhere different with it.
He brings life out of it, he brings story art out of it. This show has a lot to say about racial inequality, racial injustice in the ongoing slow-motion riot that is American spirit in crisis.
