Joe Dempsie

In Skins (2007), Joe Dempsie’s Chris Miles helps keep an abrasive group of teenagers from becoming tiresome. Alongside April Pearson’s Michelle Richardson and Larissa Wilson’s Jal Fazer, he gives the ensemble enough variety to make its bad behaviour worth sitting through. We enjoyed their company because the performances stopped the programme’s appetite for shock becoming monotonous. Dempsie handles comedy and drama believably, which matters in a series that is more sympathetic to its teenagers than it initially sounds. The predictable plotting is harder to forgive.

Chris was his breakthrough, and the association with a hedonistic character became something he deliberately tried not to repeat. Avoiding similar roles meant periods without work. Gendry, the blacksmith in Game of Thrones (2011), brought wider recognition and required preparation in the gym. Later roles include Rich in Adult Material (2020) and Derek Mahon in Toxic Town (2025), while his collaborators include director Shane Meadows, with whom he has worked twice. The move away from Chris looks sensible: repeating the party-going young man would have told us little that Skins had not already established.

Toxic Town offers a qualified recommendation for the later work. Its performances give a familiar injustice story force, though Jodie Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood are the principal reasons for our enthusiasm. The tidier, more sentimental passages remain a problem; a good cast can carry those passages only so far. As Derek, Dempsie is part of a drama we recommend for its acting, without claiming that his is its defining performance.

We would welcome parts that give his comedy as much room as his dramatic work. His believable presence among other actors is already a good reason to follow him, without insisting that he must dominate a programme to justify the interest. Give him another ensemble, by all means; there is no need to give him another Chris.