Glasgow-born rapper-turned-social commentator Darrren McGarvey is now a well-regarded broadcaster and a prize-winning author.

His views on politics and everything it encompasses are as sought-after after as they are cogently argued and persuasive – doubly so given his lived experience of substance abuse and deprivation. Which means a new series of documentaries fronted by him is big news.

What is the new series called?

The title is Darren McGarvey: The State We’re In and it’s a three-part documentary series in which McGarvey travels the length and breadth of the UK in order to make an audit of how we’re doing as regards our public services. Coming under scrutiny are hot topic issues such as access to education and health services.

What’s in episode one?

Kicking things off, McGarvey peers into the workings of the justice system – and finds that it creaks at best and in other places seems to have seized up entirely. Prisons are over-crowded and dangerous, and cases can take months or years to come to courts which puts unbearable stress on victims and their families. As a result of all this, public trust in the police and the courts is rock bottom.

The Herald: Darren McGarvey with officer Allan outside Indre Østfold prisonDarren McGarvey with officer Allan outside Indre Østfold prison (Image: BBC)

As he surveys the scene McGarvey spends a day with a police officer in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, talks to the mother of a 12-year-old girl murdered in a high-profile knife attack in Liverpool, and meets high-flying barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind. She has been a trenchant critic of the governmental habit of pursuing good tabloid headlines regarding law and order without thinking through the consequences of those actions.

Who is Darren McGarvey?

Brought up in Pollok in the south-west of Glasgow, McGarvey initially came to prominence as a rapper using the stage name Loki, a character from Norse mythology.

Among his recorded works are long-players GIMP: Government Issue Music Protest, a crowd-funded album released in 2014, and Trigger Warning, from 2017.

An active voice in the Yes campaign for Scottish independence ahead of the 2014 referendum on the issue, McGarvey later published Poverty Safari: Understanding The Anger Of Britain’s Underclass.

In it he describes his upbringing as one “well adjusted to the threat of violence”, details his own struggles with substance abuse, and digs into the reasons for deprivation while offering some solutions.

Unsurprisingly the book won the prestigious 2018 Orwell Prize, named for George Orwell and awarded annually to the book which best turns “political writing into art”.

Since then McGarvey has also contributed to the equally prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC – delivered in 2022, his was titled Freedom From Want – and in 2023 he was elected an Open Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in an intake which also included fellow Scots Jenni Fagan, Gavin Francis and Janice Galloway.

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Is there a Scottish angle to the new series?

Closer to home, McGarvey spends a day in Scotland’s largest and oldest prison, Barlinnie. It isn’t as notorious as it once was, but it’s still overcrowded and attempting to meet the requirements of the 21st century with a building designed and built in the 19th.

In contrast to that, McGarvey then heads north to – where else? – Scandinavia, where he finds a prison service focussed on rehabilitation rather than punishment, and where prisoners generally receive shorter sentences.

When is the programme on?

Darren McGarvey: The State We’re In begins on Tuesday February 27 on BBC Two (9pm) and BBC Scotland (10pm), and runs until mid-March.

All three episodes will be available to watch on the BBC iPlayer from February 27.

The series is made by Scottish-based Tern TV in partnership with the Open University.