Mr Bates vs The Post Office | Series | Telescope Film
Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Mr Bates vs The Post Office

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  • United Kingdom
  • 2024
  • · 1 season
  • · 50m

Creator James Strong
Cast Toby Jones, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Monica Dolan, Shaun Dooley, Ian Hart, Lia Williams
Genre Drama

During the 2000s, a computer glitch led to hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for financial crimes. The IT system Horizon was responsible for these issues, but employees were blamed instead. In 2009, a group of the wrongly accused, including sub-postmaster Alan Bates, took a stand against their unfair treatment. This series chronicles their fight for justice.

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What are critics saying?

100

i by Gerard Gilbert

Stirring stuff, and seemingly like so much of our post these days, long overdue.

80

The Observer (UK) by Barbara Ellen

It feels at times like being pounded by gigantic dialogue boulders of information. Even so, this is a staunch David and Goliath homage to quiet fortitude triumphing over corporate chicanery, and well worth anyone’s time.

80

Los Angeles Times by Robert Lloyd

The sweet-faced Jones — if you loved him in “Detectorists” you should love him here, in a part not a million miles away — stars as Alan, the quietly stubborn leader of the resistance, and the hub that connects the series’ several stories. .... Above all, “Mr. Bates vs The Post Office” is an indictment of bureaucratic arrogance and the familiar reluctance of institutions to admit, and when admitted, to rectify, mistakes.

80

Wall Street Journal by John Anderson

The hero here, as one can assume from the title, is Alan Bates, played by a wonderfully measured Toby Jones. .... Righteous indignation is the central mission of "Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office," and one can become anxious despising characters as much as one will during this four-part procedural.

80

The Times by Carol Midgley

Perhaps Hughes's main achievement is in making it so discomfiting to watch. It is still scarcely believable that this happened in modern Britain, that good people actually went to prison for things they hadn't done.

80

The Telegraph by Jasper Rees

Jones, all cheer and steel, is simply perfect as the little man who proves undefeatable. Indeed, the many familiar faces all feel ideally cast, from Monica Dolan as Jo Hamilton, whose plain-as-a-pikestaff decency was weaponised against her, to Lia Williams as Post Office Ltd’s Paula Vennells.

80

The Guardian by Rebecca Nicholson

The Post Office scandal has been so long-running that it can feel as if the staggering injustice at the heart of it all has been lost in the dense forest of the details. This makes it human again, and simplifies the case for outrage that this was done to so many innocent people.

60

The Independent by Nick Hilton

Through odd creative decisions and the technical nature of the intrigue, Mr Bates vs the Post Office ends up being a human drama that could use a bit more drama.