HIDE AND SEEK (THE GOLD)

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"How do you shift three tonnes of gold?" 

That's the question posed by Charlotte Smith's Metropolitan Police detective Nicki Jennings during BBC1's crime drama 'The Gold'.

In fact, it is turns out to be the primary concern of Neil Forsyth's six part miniseries which focuses on the aftermath of the Brinks Mat heist.

Forsyth zones in on the efforts of criminals to conceal their ill gotten gains and also the attempts by Metropolitan Police detectives in London to recover them.

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The £26 million Brinks Mat robbery in November 1983 is the stuff of English gangster folklore.

A masked gang of six robbers forced their way into a warehouse near Heathrow Airport looking to steal 3 million Spanish pesetas from a vault.

They doused security officers in petrol and threatened to set them alight when their attention switched from the contents of the vault to 6,840 gold bars stored outside it in 76 cardboard boxes earmarked for Hong Kong.

Taking the gold, they made off with around 1,000 carats of diamonds and around £250,000 in travellers cheques as well.

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Forsyth and director Aneil Karia recreate the heist in the opening episode.

However they are much more excited about the aftermath - specifically the hiring by gang leader, Adam Nagatis' Mickey McAvoy of Jack Lowden's Kenneth Noye to shift the gold, get it smelted and laundered.

This is where 'The Gold' really scores, impressively mapping out the lengths criminals will go to hide the proceeds of their crimes.

Noye engages Tom Cullen's gold dealer John Palmer to smelt the bars, getting rid of the trademark and trading it on the legitimate market.

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So successful were Noye and his associates in laundering a lot of the gold, every ring bought in the UK after 1983 is believed to have contained some traces of the Brinks Mat bullion.

With the gang requiring the profits to be launderex, that's where Dominic Cooper's slick lawyer Edwyn Cooper comes in, teaming up with Sean Harris' wily underworld figure, Gordon Parry.

Attempting to arrest the gang and recover the gold are Hugh Bonneville's former soldier DCI Brian Boyce and a unit that includes Nicki Jennings,  Emun Elliott's detective Tony Brightwell, Silas Carson's detective Harry Bowman and Daniel Ings' Archie Osbourne.

Noye, though, is more than a match for the team - confidently batting off their interest in their activities.

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While having to outwit the criminals involved in the robbery, Boyce and his detectives also have to battle colleagues in the Metropolitan Police including Peter Davidson's pompous Assistant Commissioner Gordan Stewart and Sean Gilder's Detective Inspector Neville Carter, a Freemason whose tentacles reach as far as Noye and whose loyalty is primarily to the brotherhood.

Forsyth and directors Aneil Karia and Lawrence Gough deliver a well researched, taut crime drama which does an excellent job explaining how criminals launder stolen gold and dodgy cash without ever condescending the audience.

'The Gold' may not be the flashiest of shows but its directors certainly extract strong performances from an ensemble cast led by Bonneville, Lowden and Cooper.

Hugh Bonneville conjures up a salt of the earth performance as a DCI who refuses to be corrupted or deflected from the task of catching those behind the heist.

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He is complemented by Smith and Elliott who make an engaging pair of diligent detectives..

Carson and Ings also shine, the latter's performance recalling Charles Martin Smith's similar role as an excitable Treasury accountant Oscar Wallace in Brian de Palma's 1987 gangster movie 'The Untouchables'.

Lowden is terrific as the arrogant Noye, a cocky criminal who is good at evading capture and conviction, particularly when charged with the murder of an undercover police officer during the surveillance of his home.

Cooper turns in a career best performance as a wealthy, money laundering lawyer who has risen from humble beginnings but soon begins to realise that he may have bitten off more than he can chew with the Brink Mat job.

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Harris bring his trademark air of menace to the part of Parry, while Sam Spruell cuts a sinister figure as a criminal associate Charlie Miller.

Where Forsyth's miniseries really scores is the way it examines the impact of the investigation on the private lives of the criminals and, the police probing them.

Tom Cullen and Stefanie Martini as John and Marnie Palmer are particularly effective in the way they depict the strain on their characters' marriage, especially when the gold dealer has to flee Britain.

Nichola Burley gels well too with Lowden as Brenda Noye, while Adam Nagatis and Sophia LaPorta capture the frustration of the mastermind behind the heist and his girlfriend as they watch others enjoying the spoils of the robbery while he remains in jail.

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Ruth Bradley and Ellora Torchia turn in effective supporting performances as Cooper's Establishment wife Isabelle and his mistress Sienna Rose.

Danny Webb makes an impression as Nicki Jennings' frail dad and former criminal Billy Jennings.

But these aren't the only golden performances.

'The Gold' is so rich it boasts other established character actors delivering solid performances.

Dorothy Atkinson is tremendous fun as one of Noye's fences, Jeannie Savage who spectacularly cocks up during one mission.

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James Nelson Joyce catches the eye as another of the fences who Noye berates for flashing the cash in a scene that is reminiscent of Robert de Niro's paranoia after the Lufthansa heist in Martin Scorsese's 'GoodFellas'.

Sean Gilder is on the top of his game as the corrupt DI Neville Carver, while Amanda Drew is on song as CS Cath McLean who watches DCI Boyce's back when other colleagues are undermining him and his team.

Peter Davidson has fun playing a pompous Assistant Commissioner, while Justin Edwards surfaces as a Kent Constabulary officer who is just a lite too cosy with Noye and Nicholas Farrell also pops up as a suave, corrupt lawyer.

Given that the Sunday night primetime slot was previously occupied by 'Happy Valley,' 'The Gold' justifies the faith placed in it by BBC1 schedulers with the right mix of police procedural, crime drama and trench humour.

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The show woos viewers by dramatising the ups and downs experienced by Boyce's team of diligent detectives and Noye's gang of shady criminals.

The show is also hugely informative.

In many ways, it is a BBC drama that really lives up to the corporation's Reithian values - educating, informing and entertaining its audience.

So hats off to Forsyth, Karia, Gough and the cast for delivering a solid, well researched piece of TV drama.

('The Gold' was broadcast on BBC1 February 19-March 19, 2023 and was also made available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer)