I don’t think my new year’s resolution – to take a lunch break every day – would much impress the cast of Industry. In the BBC show’s fourth series, the idea that work might pause politely at midday feels almost quaint, like a relic of a slower moral universe.

As our reviewer Peter Watt, who researches the philosophy of work culture, explains, when Industry first aired in 2020 it seemed ostensibly to be a drama about a recent cohort of ambitious young graduates entering the cut-throat world of investment banking. But as the opening season unfolded and its central characters were established, it became clear that although the trading floor of the fictional-but-all-so-familiar Pierpoint and Co. was its setting, this was not just a show about finance.

Now returning for season four, the show is exposing the Faustian pact of modern work culture. For the Industry cast (and so many of us in the real world) life no longer interrupts work – work is life.

Industry season four is streaming on BBC iplayer

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A grizzled former detective........

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