'Prisoner 951': Hope amid horror in Iran

If the Christmas season is leaving you feeling like you’ve overdone it on festive-themed, saccharine-filled shows, and you want something with more substance, then the BBC has just the thing for you.

Prisoner 951 is a four-part drama based on the upcoming book A Yard of Sky, dramatizing the harrowing six-year struggle to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and allow her to return to the UK from Iran. 

It’s intense and powerful, with the occasional darkly comic moment. The first episode is perhaps the most compelling, with the viewer feeling the same confusion as Nazanin herself does as events unfold. We hear her cry out: “Will somebody tell me why I am here?” She is beautifully played by Narges Rashidi, and totally believable - whether she is in obvious agony or simply numb.

There have been complaints online about the sheer volume of subtitles (the script switches between Farsi and English), but it is worth watching to see the toll that international diplomacy takes on individuals, and how control and fear play a role in the lives of those in states run in a very different way from our own.

It also showcases some of the frustrations with our own government: Joseph Fiennes, playing Richard Ratcliffe, spits out that he feels “like now I’m fighting two governments, the Iranians and my own." We see real footage of Boris Johnson making a bad situation worse as he declares Nazanin was “simply teaching people journalism.”

The Financial Times' review of the show declared: “The Foreign Office emerges from this with all the tact, grace and empathy of a dumper truck.”

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani - Iranian herself - spoke out strongly for Zaghari-Ratcliffe in the House of Lords during her detention in Iran, recognising that she was “a pawn in a political struggle between Britain and Iran” and describing her detention as a “terrible wrong.”

This show may not increase your faith in government systems of any kind – and might make you shiver at the oppression shown in Iran, with not just men with guns doing as they please, but also women in black chadors watching on, mostly with still, stoic expressions - but it might increase the sense of hope you have about humanity.

Saved by her faith

We see an ordinary couple who maintain an extraordinary fight, refusing to give up on one another. Despite the bleak reality they each face, their resilience is incredible.

In March of this year, Zaghari-Ratcliffe spoke at an event in Salisbury Cathedral of how she tried to talk to God during her solitary confinement. She said: “I think it was my faith that actually saved me." The BBC show depicts her reading the Bible to a group of women while in prison.

Sadly, at that Salisbury event she also described how her relationship with faith was made more complex by the prison guards telling her that they were praying for her release, while keeping her captive. The message again and again in interrogations was that “nobody cares about you.” The expectation was that this declaration would break Nazanin's spirit, together with her hopes being almost met and then dashed - again and again.

Despite all this, the series also shows us something of the best of humanity. In the accompanying BBC documentary about the experiences that led to the series, Prisoner 951: The Hostages’ Story, Richard Ratcliffe describes how the visits he received while on hunger strike in central London to show support made that time almost festival-like (things hung up, people sleeping on pavements, individuals stopping by as if visiting a stand at a festival). "It became this really lovely but subversive thing," Richard said. The documentary features personal accounts, and actual arrest footage, along with interviews with former hostages and political decision makers.

The series itself makes a feature of the kindness of the imprisoned women to each other: the small acts of care and love, the shared joys and sorrows.

The extraordinary resilience shown in resistance to the Iranian regime, while inspiring, may feel far from the lives of many of us in the West. But each of us has the power to make a difference to the lives around us. Not just with petitions, or hunger strikes, but in trying to meet the needs of those we encounter, with love and compassion, where we can; with a kind word, an encouragement, a Bible verse, a proffered prayer, a prepared meal, or just a smile or wave.

It might not be a classic New Year’s resolution, but what a difference it would make if we impacted the lives of those around us in this positive way just a little bit more in 2026.