Five grads make their mark in the ‘Industry’!

According to Lena Dunham, the writer-director behind the acclaimed (if hugely divisive) US series Girls, the new eight-part drama Industry is a cross between Martin Scorsese’s movie The Wolf of Wall Street and the American soap Melrose Place.

She clearly meant it as a compliment – she’s one of the executive producers and directed the opening episode.

It’s also easy to see what she means. The series follows a group of young graduates who are competing against each other for a limited set of permanent positions at a top investment bank in London.

However, while they may be battling it out, that doesn’t mean they can’t be friends, colleagues and lovers, as well as enemies. In fact, the boundaries soon become blurred, especially when (and this is where that Wolf of Wall Street comparison comes in), it seems the company’s culture is as much about sex, drugs and ego as it is about deals and dividends. As the group sees their own stock rise and fall, they have to decide what’s truly important to them.

But while the series may be drawing comparisons to other dramas, star Myha’la Herrold, who plays an American graduate called Harper, believes Industry offers a unique spin on the subject of high finance.

She told EW: “[The characters] are at probably the most pivotal part in a young person’s life where they’re going from being in college to this very niche finance world where they’re suddenly being asked to move and participate like adults would — but they’re not that yet, so it’s like a child in an old man’s suit. On the inside, they’re scared to death because the environment is not anything they’ve ever experienced before.”

She added: “Most finance dramas are dealing with adults who are 30 and it’s all about the money. But this show isn’t really about finance. It’s about these young people trying to figure out who they are and all these strange, incredibly personal relationships that they form with each other in this dangerous, intimidating environment.”

As befits a drama about ambitious youngsters, the cast is full of other young up-and-coming actors including Marisa Abela (Cobra), Harry Lawtey (Marcella), David Jonsson (Deep State), Nabhaan Rizwan (Informer), Freya Mavor (The ABC Murders), Will Tudor (Game of Thrones), Conor Macneill (Death and Nightingales) and Ken Leung (Marvel’s Inhumans).

Meanwhile, the series is the debut for writers Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, who have set out to explore issues of gender, race, class, and privilege in a workplace where young people are promised that they can succeed on their merits, but where they find themselves becoming part of a strict hierarchy.

In the opening episode, the five grads – Yasmin Kara-Hanani, Robert Spearing, Gus Sackey, Hari Dhar and Harper, for whom this is even more of a brave new world – get ready to make their mark on Pierpoint. Sadly, it quickly becomes clear that for one of them it’s all going to be a bit too much.

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