Prison, if you believe certain people, is a complete doddle.
Sky Sports, endless Fifa on the PS4 and a compensation cheque if one of the guards messes up your complementary pedicure.
Odd, then, that there aren’t queues to get into British jails. In fact folk are quite intent on not being stuck in one if they can help it.
Cracker and Hillsborough writer Jimmy McGovern has ably demonstrated why prison isn’t the carefree summer camp filled with excursions to Alton Towers some think it is with Time, a new drama so gritty you could pour it on your driveway.
Game Of Thrones star Sean Bean is Mark Cobden, a teacher sentenced to four years after killing someone by dangerous driving. His face may be craggier than Arthur’s Seat but Bean is a rookie when it comes to choky.
He is surrounded by hardened cons but also, as with real prisons, people who should probably be in some mental health care facility rather than a grim Victorian lock-up.
An intensely paranoid cellmate cutting himself to ribbons is only the beginning of his worries.
Meanwhile, Stephen Graham’s fundamentally good prison officer is trying to protect his son, banged up 200 miles away but not far enough.
Nothing is black and white here; apart from perhaps the deeply gloomy colour palette.
Time BBC1, Sunday, 9pm
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