The third series of Jimmy McGovern’s breathtaking series Time stars David Tennant – and might just be its best ever. We go behind the scenes

“I don’t think you would find a young offender institution (YOI) in which stories like these haven’t happened. Seventeen years of age, loads of energy, hormones, bravado – you know they’ll kick off. It must be an absolute nightmare.”

Yes, Jimmy McGovern has gone back to prison again. After two series of Time, which told stories from men’s and women’s institutions, he has turned his attention to perhaps the most distressing ones of all. Set in a YOI, it’s full of tales of bad decisions, directionless rage and lost potential at the most vulnerable of ages. If this third series is, as he suggests, the last, it is quite the curtain call.