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It’s a bright but chilly February afternoon in Liverpool and, in a deserted restaurant in the city’s Chinatown, James Nelson-Joyce is the boss in Boss. The actor, who plays ambitious gangland prince Michael Kavanagh in Macbeth-on-Merseyside thriller This City Is Ours, is layered in fine, street-smart tailoring from German designer Hugo Boss: hoodie, quilted gilet and fitted, stone-grey overcoat.

Vape in hand and blue eyes on stun, the BAFTA-nominated star of what was, at time of broadcast, the BBC’s most watched new drama of 2025, is taking a moment between filming scenes that occur deep in the second season. But right now he’s reflecting on the career-making success of the first.

“Well, to be honest, I’m just really proud of the show,” he says. “I remember reading the script, and I hounded [my agents] saying, ‘I’ve got to be in this.’

I knew it was a great show. And when you see the cast that’s involved, and the writers and the director, the whole team, we have the best in the world. And it is like a family.”

So, when a second series was greenlit in May 2025, before the first series had even finished, Nelson-Joyce was, as they say round these parts, made up. “Coming back to it, it was all my Christmasses come at once,” he says. “But the reaction was never a surprise, if I’m honest. I knew we had a hit show.”

And as for where and how we catch up with Michael at the start of the new, eight-episode run… “If you think last year was a headache, this one’s even more!” the 37-year-old says with a low chuckle. “It’s very complex, and Michael ends up in a situation where he once again has to choose between right and wrong.”

The new season will also take a jaunt to Spain, where the hunt for a missing body in the Costa del Crime turns dangerous when vengeful Colombian gangsters descend, following the death of one of their number last series.

Meanwhile, back on Merseyside, Michael’s drug-dealing rival Jamie (Jack McMullen) “is being Jamie,” show creator and lead writer Stephen Butchard says wryly. “Everything that was agreed about the new order is thrown to the wind. So that’s where we start,” Butchard concludes brightly. “Ructions in Spain, ructions in Liverpool.” Sounds like this city is chaos. Bring it on.

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This City Is Ours returns to BBC One later this year.

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