James Nelson-Joyce is convincing as a dangerous man, but we rate him more highly when the part allows him to be hurt. This City Is Ours gives his familiar crime-drama casting a welcome complication.
Fi1m perspective
In This City Is Ours (2025), Michael Kavanagh’s place in Liverpool’s cocaine trade does not help him secure the family life he wants with Diana Williams. James Nelson-Joyce makes that frustration worth following even when the criminal plotting feels familiar. We were moved by Michael’s hurt because Nelson-Joyce makes his openness convincing without asking us to forgive his occupation. Hannah Onslow gives Diana enough presence for this to feel like a shared difficulty, rather than another inconvenience for the leading man. Their fertility struggles give him a problem his criminal influence is poorly equipped to solve.
The route to that leading role has been crowded with men we would rather not meet. James Yates in Little Boy Blue (2017) was his first significant part. Johnno, the violent prison bully in Time (2021), brought the breakthrough. The move into leading parts in 2025 also brought Edward ‘Treacle’ Goodson, a bare-knuckle boxer and brother to Stephen Graham’s character, in A Thousand Blows (2025). The parts have grown without taking him far from violence, which makes Michael’s private hopes a particularly useful opportunity to show what else he can do.
Bird (2024) shows both the usefulness and the possible limit of that casting. Andrea Arnold casts him as Skate, the boyfriend of Bailey’s mother, Peyton, played by Jasmine Jobson. He is the danger in the household, and there is little uncertainty about what we should fear. Arnold’s fairy tale is less convincing than that threat, particularly when Bird’s gentleness starts to feel like a device. It is effective casting, though Skate gives us less to engage with than Michael.
We would like to see more parts that make use of his capacity for hurt. Stephen Butchard’s writing in This City Is Ours does that, even when the betrayals and divided loyalties run along well-used lines. Nelson-Joyce cannot make those manoeuvres fresh, and we would not recommend the programme on its crime story alone. What he and Onslow provide is a reason to care when the next complication arrives. Start there, with a little patience for the gangland business.
Biography
James Nelson-Joyce is an English actor from Liverpool. He trained at the City of Liverpool College and the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, and has been active since 2013.
He is known for roles including James Yates in Little Boy Blue (2017), Johnno in Time (2021), Skate in Bird (2024), Edward 'Treacle' Goodson in A Thousand Blows (2025) and Michael Kavanagh in This City Is Ours (2025). He has collaborated several times with Stephen Graham and Sean Bean, and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor for his performance in This City Is Ours.
