Pressures of work in the high-stakes financial world animate new drama, 'Industry'

In the uncertain world faced by university graduates entering the workplace today, the old expectations of career paths and social mobility are crumbling. Contrary to popular opinion, many Millennials are working their butts off without being guaranteed the rewards that hard work used to pay to their parents' generation because so many social structures have become unstable.

In this environment, how does this young workforce manage to keep their sanity and hold onto some sort of sense of morality and identity?

That's the question HBO's new show Industry attempts to answer through a story of five young people from very different social and economic backgrounds who arrive in the intimidating, glittering glass-façade, high-rise and high-stakes world of London's financial district.

They're looking to set themselves up for life in the style to which their superiors have become accustomed, but which the world outside regards as crass, cold and indifferent to the lived reality beyond the glass palaces of the city.

EXPECTATIONS

Created by writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, who once worked in the financial sector, Industry offers a story about the realities and moral choices faced by young people in a world where early on in their development they're given high-power jobs involving millions of pounds and forced, as Kay says, "to cosplay at being adults in their suits and ties [in an environment] where the routine of the job makes it easy to forget who you actually are".

The series is focused on the stories of two very different young women who arrive in this world with different motivations and expectations. They're gradually drawn together in a friendship that will be challenged by the exacting demands made by the ruthless environment they find themselves in.

Biracial American Harper's (Myha'la Herrold) job offers her an opportunity to escape her past, reinvent herself and fast-track herself on the road to achieving her aspirations of wealth and power. For posh London girl Yasmin (Marisa Abela), the job also offers an opportunity for reinvention and escape from the expectations of her upper-set upbringing and its attendant ennui.

CITY EXCESS

In its frank exploration of the other sides of city life - the drugs, sex and excess that are taken for granted as necessary outlets for high pressure work life - Industry will no doubt draw parallels with HBO's other hit show, Euphoria, which also examines the stresses of young people caught up in a world where they're forced to grow up too quickly.

But Kay and Down are careful to tie these potentially shocking aspects of the show to a broader, subtle critique of the financial sector and the economic and social structures that underpin it.

It's also a show that, as its title suggests, is about these pressures as they apply more generally to any modern office environment. That's intentional and something Kay is careful to stress was part of the duo's writing approach when they first sat down to write it four years ago.

He points out that: "Typically when you make shows about finance it's approached from the top down instead of from the bottom up. We really wanted to write about these young people going into the workplace and what that experience is like. These things are true to all industries."

Likewise, while the creators have employed their own experiences of the ins and outs of the specifics of the financial world and used consultants to ensure authenticity, Industry mostly avoids getting too bogged down in the opaque details of finance in favour of a plot that's motivated by character.

Kay admits that, "It's such a cliché but it was always a character-driven show and not something engineered from an idea of insider trading or how greed leads to people stealing money or anything like that - it was more about who these people are and why money is so important to them."

He adds that he and Down hope the characters all have a vulnerability and insecurity to them. "It was all about peeling back the layers and finding out what their individual wounds were because once we identified those you can start to emphasise with all of them. We're hoping to show that within all these messy contradictions is a human experience of character."

CLIFFHANGERS

That focus on character allows for the cliffhangers and entertainment value that audiences have come to expect from prestige drama. It doesn't come from difficult-to-follow financial world minutiae but rather from the relatable challenges faced by its young and diverse cast of characters.

Ultimately, Industry manages to grab you and pull you into its world pretty early on and by the end of its eight episodes, it should leave you breathless but still thinking about some of the bigger issues that bubble under its glitzy surface.

Down hopes that he and Kay have been successful in their aim to not present a show that's constantly in the audience's ear saying this is what you have to think about it. "Over eight episodes our voice and what we think about it is clear but we wanted it to be as ambiguous as possible so that the audience can make up their own minds."

• The first four episodes of 'Industry' are currently available to stream on Showmax. New episodes are added on Wednesdays and all eight episodes will be available to binge from December 30.