Our Mutual Friend

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the King dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

When Jess takes her baby to hospital with an unexplained head injury, her close friend, A&E doctor Liz, makes the excruciating decision to call social services, igniting an explosive chain of events.

Passionate defence barrister Martha Costello faces challenging cases and surprising clients, which test her faith in the criminal justice system. Gifted colleague Clive Reader is called to the bar with her. They work hard with pupils, Nick Slade and Niamh Cranitch, but ultimately only one can eventually be taken on as a member of chambers.