TCoal is the thing. The first series of James Graham’s Sherwood was based on his experiences growing up in a mining village in Nottinghamshire, where the people and culture were shaped first by the shared experience of mining and then, in the 1980s, by strikes against pit closures and the end of an industry – or not. The original series was a state of the nation report told through two crime stories. This return to the village comes some 10 years later, when – as archive footage and headlines that open the new six-part series remind us – gang violence reached such a peak that the town was nicknamed ‘Shottingham’.

The divisions of yesteryear are still present in Sherwood’s second film, but the more pressing issue is how to deal with a disillusioned generation lacking the purpose of their parents and grandparents, and communities that have nothing left to hold them together. This time, the question is raised by the murder of a young man that brings Ian St. Clair (David Morrissey) out of “retirement” – he’s left the police force to take a role in crime prevention as the local anti-violence czar – and actually brings the matriarch of the feared Sparrow clan, Daphne (Lorraine Ashbourne, returning to her kingdom after spending most of the original series in the background), back into the world of extreme criminal activity. Her younger son, Ronan (Bill Jones), witnesses the murder. The dead man’s parents are Anne and Roy Branson (Monica Dolan, who seems sad and frightening, and Stephen Dillane, who lies in wait for her), the heads of a rival crime family who are now determined to seek revenge.

The killer is Ryan Bottomley (Oliver Huntingdon), a troubled twenty-something who has had to be excluded from his family – stepmother Pam (Sharlene Whyte) and sister Stephie (Bethany Asher) – who now live with Pam’s brother Dennis (David Harewood). They become – devastatingly – caught up in the horrific events that unfold with the precision, gravity and inevitability of a Greek tragedy. The same goes for Ian’s successor in the police force, DCS Harry Summers (Michael Balogun), who is investigating Branson’s murder while clearly in danger of being consumed by trauma from the past.

All this is in contrast to the potential reopening of the local mine, seen by most as a step backwards, potentially reopening wounds that were only just beginning to heal; a life-changing opportunity to regenerate the area, according to Samuel Warner (Robert Emms) and his father Franklin (Robert Lindsay, in case you needed a reminder that Graham is Alan Bleasdale’s heir), the businessmen spearheading the campaign.

Everything that made Sherwood great the first time around is still there (including Lesley Manville, returning as the widowed Julie Jackson). The personal bleeds into the political and vice versa, a particular world the author knows inside and out is made universal and compelling to all, and it all seems to happen organically, unobtrusively and brutally convincingly. That’s simply because you know at almost every moment that these people, these characters Graham has created with so much love, care and talent, would think, speak and act this way. There are occasional digressions into agitprop – a ham-fisted speech about a lack of investment in young people and the resulting recidivism stands out – and a scene between Dennis and traumatised detective Summers about lost treasure feels like it’s being stretched far, but that’s hair-splitting of the highest (or lowest) order.

Like the original, the film is packed to the brim with brilliant performances. The old guard – Manville, Morrissey, Ashbourne – remain flawless. And the newcomers, from stalwarts like Harewood, Dolan and Dillane to relative newcomers like Huntingdon – who exudes a mixture of pain, distress and dangerous rage that leaves you watching in horrified anticipation of the moment of spontaneous combustion – fit in seamlessly.

In some ways it feels more contemporary than the first Sherwood, although the original resonated deeply. This time there is no need to recall a specific event like the miners’ strikes (which for many feel like ancient history, although it’s hard to believe it). The latest film reflects our growing contemporary anxiety about crumbling communities, about alienation, about the malevolent figures rushing to fill a vacuum created by unemployment, poverty and unmet needs of all kinds. We live in an age of unrest. The new Sherwood looks at how and why we got there. I hope Julie can try to help us again.