ON UK TV

Thursday 13 September
10:00pm - 12:00am
Channel 4
This sparse and incredibly moving drama is based on the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004 - a tragedy that illuminated the disquieting realities of Britain's illegal labour market. Employing hand-held cameras, non-professional actors and a screenplay that skilfully blends fact and fiction, Ghosts follows single mother Ai Qin (Ai Qin Li) from rural China to England's North West. She's hoping to earn money to send back to her family, but instead she finds racism, poverty and virtual slavery at the hands of her exploitative gangmaster Mr Lin (Zhan Yu). Film-maker Nick Broomfield has been a forceful presence in front of the camera in documentaries such as Kurt & Courtney and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. But here, rather than asking the questions, he breathes a sensitive, human touch into the story behind the newspaper headlines in only his second scripted movie. It's a truly harrowing glimpse of an illegal twilight zone that few of us want to acknowledge.