Shameless - Series 1 to 7 Complete Boxset

RRP: £99.99

Best Price: £19.99

Television - be it drama or comedy - has a long-standing love of shows about family. In real life, it’s at home where most of our dramatic stories happen - your wife’s leaving you, your kids seem carefully designed to cause trouble and your brother just can’t seem to get his act together. Family makes great television because, at it’s core, it’s something that every single one of us can relate to. That said, there’s only so much middle-class domesticity that television can handle - it was just a matter of time before TV explored the more unconventional family unit.

Who better to do this than Paul Abbott, acclaimed TV scribe with a renowned working class background? Creating Shameless, he takes his trademark ballsy, gritty voice, applies a swathe of broad comic moments and creates, truly, a drama as distinctive as it is impressive.
Shameless follows the Gallagher family, living on the fictional - but close to life - Chatsworth Estate. It’s an exaggeration of working class life, a family led by dad Frank (David Threlfall) - a reprehensible, almost completely unlikable alcoholic who essentially leaves his six children to fight for themselves. Eldest sister Fiona takes charge but will this family be able to stick together despite the environment of crime, scrounging and violence that surrounds them?

The short answer is yes - but it’s not the plot that keeps you watching. Threlfall’s performance as Frank is outstanding, but completely matched by a supporting cast including James McAvoy, Anne Marie Duff and, later, Pauline McLynn (Father Ted). They inject these bad people doing bad things with heart, depth and a layer of kindness that runs beneath the surface. Just like in reality, Shameless is populated by people that you might judge at first - accurately - but who’ll grow on you over time.

This box set features series 1-7 in their entirety, giving you enough time to really get to know these characters - and to realise that, above all else, they’re a family you want to see succeed.