The State follows four British Muslims who find themselves travelling to Raqqah, Syria to become part of ISIS.

 

These characters are Ushna, 18, a timid student; Jalal, 19, whose brother died fighting for ISIS; Shakira, 26, a mother and nurse; and Ziyaad, 19, Jalal's friend and a school dropout.

 

Coming from very different backgrounds, each has their individual reasons for joining the Caliphate and the series shows how they follow this through, before becoming disenchanted with the situation they've got themselves in.

 

Starting tonight (Sunday 20th August), each episode lasts an hour, and the remaining three episodes will air on the subsequent three nights at the same time. It comes from acclaimed writer-director Peter Kosminsky.

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

I'm excited about this! Peter was behind the amazing Wolf Hall so I'm expecting good things. Could prove to be very controversial.

I'm going to record it.

 

Could never get my head around why intelligent Brits made this move, especially with children.

I'm surprised that this is the first I've heard of this show, as it's bound to stir up controversy given the subject matter. Hopefully it is portrayed in an intelligent way so that it doesn't end up glorifying membership of ISIS.

This was an interesting watch, although still not completely sure what the medical woman with the child was expecting? I can maybe understand the guy's intentions a bit more as he probably thought he could cope with it when in reality he couldn't.

 

Quite a brutal watch in parts though, obviously given the subject matter, but great Channel 4 drama! They really outshine ITV for me.

Really brutal at times, I kinda felt like they were trying to make us feel sorry for those who went out there but really it's exactly what they should've expected. I couldn't sympathise at all!