Occupation on BBC One

With the recent announcement of another inquiry into the build-up, waging, and fall-out of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the BBC's drama Occupation is very timely.

From the off, it shows a modern, highly-trained and professional army disastrously misused against a military force that looks civilian and co-exists alongside civilians. The potential for mishaps is huge, as a gang of British squaddies soon discovers. James Nesbitt's Sgt. Mike Swift is the one labelled a hero, dashing through the streets carrying a young, injured girl. But he's also the first to learn just how limited is the British capacity to help the local populace. He almost looks like he expects to be taking her to a modern, state-of-the-art British (private) hospital...his face falls as he learns the girl's operation will never happen, because Basra's hospital has neither the equipment nor the surgeons.

Luckily for him, he does get to meet pretty Dr. Aliyah (Lubna Azabal), who – somehow – manages to come over to Britain with the headline-grabbing girl and get her fixed up in a plush-looking hospital. She also gets a rather nice apartment, which is apparently not a permanent arrangement, but looks it. She is Swift's eye in the storm that is Iraq. In fact, she becomes rather more than that, briefly, and Mrs. Swift (Monica Dolan) is understandably not impressed (though how she finds out about the brief snog is anyone's guess). Clearly, like a sailor, Swift has a woman in both ports – a foreign lover and a domestic wife, different types of women for different settings.

That different setting is highlighted again and again in Occupation. Britain is cool, safe (even the London bombings feel remote), secure and exists in greys, blues and whites. Iraq is hot, rife with danger, almost lawless and exists in red, browns, beige and the black of the military contractors. Our squaddies (Nesbitt, among others) seem bored in their home lives, Stephen Graham's Danny being the most keen for more action. Seeing the way his dementia-afflicted mum mistakes a hulking black man for her short, stocky white son, it's hardly surprising. He's soon off with ex-Marine Lester (Nonso Anozie, a suave fridge-shaped bulk of towering Size – with the capital 'S') running a private security firm in Basra.

They've recruited fellow ex-squaddie Lee Hibbs, played brilliantly by Warren Brown. Personally, I've always been a fan of Nesbitt, but on this occasion, Brown may have pipped him to my Favourite Actor slot. Once his medical record sees him discharged from the Army, Hibbs tries a bit of Bouncing, before joining Danny and Lester in Basra, but flips when his local mate is – a bit predictably – killed by Shi'ia militiamen within the Iraqi police. Men Hibbs himself trained in his squaddie days. It's on his return to the country that Brown gets to run through the other half of human emotion he hasn't yet covered (having already shown euphoria, joy, anger, anguish and chirpy ladish cheerfullness back home) when he finds his mate's family and then gets kidnapped.

If you only know Warren Brown as the barman in Grownups, taking his top off at every (invented) opportunity, you have to watch Occupation. Brown deserves not to be underestimated as a first-class actor.