When Jimmy McGovern finally gives up writing for film and television, he should do so with immense pride.
No British television dramatist has matched McGovern when it comes to regularly creating quality dramas that confront the toughest of subjects.
From male rage to racism, sexual repression to disability, miscarriages of justice to poverty, the Liverpudlian appears to have covered it all.
Yet here is again shining a light on another difficult subject with compassion and consummate skill.
'Unforgivable' tackles paedophilia or, to be even more precise, the aftermath of it.
Bobby Schofield is Joe, a man imprisoned for abusing his nephew, Austin Haynes' Tom.
Ostracised from the rest of his family at the start of the BBC2 one-off drama, he runs a gauntlet of rage from the other inmates every day every time he steps out onto the prison landing.
When Joe's mum dies in the family home after illness, his father, David Threlfall's Brian doesn't want him to attend her funeral.
Joe's sister, Anna Friel's single mother of two boys, Anna is furious with him because Tom is her son.
Meanwhile Tom, who barely speaks a word, is struggling in school with Anna regularly being called out of work to deal with his behavioural issues.
However her pleas for the school authorities to show some understanding given the trauma he has been through are met unsympathetically.
Leaning on Mark Womack's family friend Paul during the funeral, Brian is consumed with guilt because he was having an affair with one of the mourners, Phina Oruche's Jodie Taylor before his wife's death.
Not long after the funeral Joe is released from prison on probation, staying at a church run hostel under the supervision of Anna Maxwell Martin's former nun Katherine.
At the hostel, he must follow a strict set of rules and restrictions on his movements around Liverpool - including visiting the graveyard where his mum is buried.
Joe is compelled to attend church with other sex offenders every week under strict supervision.
But he also must confront the abuse he perpetrated on Tom in therapy sessions and try to understand the root causes of it.
Doing so opens up a lot of old wounds and a dark secret from his past that will have devastating consequences for his family.
As you'd expect from McGovern, 'Unforgivable' is a no holds barred, daring piece of TV drama packed full of wonderful dialogue.
No other screenwriter working in British television would dare walk the tightrope that McGovern does, asking viewers to empathise with a sex offender.
Yet he achieves this brilliantly.
Working from such a high quality script, director Julia Ford coaxes out an astonishing warts and all performance from Schofield as an offender who doesn't soft soap his crime and is compelled to understand why he ended up abusing.
The other towering performance comes from Anna Friel whose character is bubbles with worry, frustration and rage as well as shock and despair.
Like all great performances, it's isn't so much what Friel says that impacts the viewer but her facial expressions and physicality that tells you what you need to know.
Both performances are deserving of a lot of awards attention.
Maxwell-Martin, Threlfall, Womack, Haynes, Ash Tandon as a psychologist and Oruche also impress in a drama that is every bit as brave and important as the much lauded, Primetime Emmy nominated Netflix drama 'Adolescence'.
Will 'Unforgivable' provoke a societal debate on the rehabilitation of sex offenders the way that 'Adolescence' did?
Probably not because of its willingness to understand someone whose crime most people would naturally regard as being beyond the pale.
But McGovern's daring drama shows how it is possible to explore why someone might abuse while repudiating their behaviour.
Even if it makes a handful of people go beyond their gut reaction, then 'Unforgivable' has done its job.
This is important, grown up television that deserves mature debate.
('Unforgivable' was broadcast on BBC2 on July 2, 2025)
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