Suffice it to say they don’t wrangle so much as throw a bunch of things on-screen, some of which are pleasing to the eye and generally engaging. I’ve barely touched on all the characters and storylines that creators Eric Warren Singer and Steve Lightfoot - Lightfoot replaced Singer as showrunner and nobody will ever be able to parse who did what or when - have to wrangle. Oh and yes, back in Australia, there’s a grouchy detective (David Field’s Nightingale) determined to bring Lin to justice no matter the cost or the similarities to Les Miserables. In very little time, Lin’s bad luck takes him to one of Bombay’s slums and attracts the attention of smooth-talking gangster Khader Khan (Alexander Siddig), who views the repentant outsider as either a son or a pawn or an opportunity to make people like me compare the plot of Shantaram to Shogun. His new allies - not quite friends - include wily fixer Didier (Vincent Perez), fiery prostitute and junkie Lisa (Elektra Kilbey), and the enigmatic Karla (Antonia Desplat), whose thoroughly perplexing past, nationality and occupation contribute to Lin falling instantly in love with her. In Bombay (Mumbai, today), Lin befriends hustling tour guide Prabhu (Shubham Saraf) and becomes acquainted with a quirky local bar populated by various expats, some looking for wealth, some for enlightenment and all just hoping to blend into the melting pot of 1982 Bombay. Facing accusations of being a snitch - he’s not, because although Dale may be a criminal, he’s profoundly honorable - Dale escapes from prison, secures a new passport and the name “Lindsay Ford” and heads to India. Our hero begins life as Dale Conti (Charlie Hunnam), an Australian philosophy student and paramedic who winds up in jail after a detour into drugs and armed robbery. Shantaram is so packed with characters and storylines that almost everybody will find two or three threads that entertain them, even if there are at least as many that feel rushed or over-extended in the first season of a drama that surely never fully conquers the challenges of a complicated adaptation. Like Roberts’ book, though, Shantaram is maybe five percent fictionalized memoir and the rest a pastiche of every muscular novel of character-driven transformation ever written, from Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo to James Clavell.

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Fayssal Bazzi, Antonia Desplat, Elektra Kilbey, Shubham SarafĬreators: Steve Lightfoot, Eric Warren Singer from the novel by Gregory David Roberts

Gregory david roberts