'Prisoner 951': Hope amid horror in Iran

Rebecca Chapman  |  Features
Date posted:  11 Dec 2025
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'Prisoner 951': Hope amid horror in Iran

Image: BBC

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.

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