Dominic West and Clarke Peters: The Wire allowed audiences to ‘exercise their minds’

The Wire stars Dominic West and Clarke Peters have hailed the “golden age” of TV it helped define and drawn parallels between the groundbreaking HBO drama and their recent travel documentary Beyond the Silk Road, positing that both give audiences a chance to “exercise their minds”. 

In an interview with Broadcast, West and Peters – who played detectives Jimmy McNulty and Lester Freamon respectively – both said David Simon’s iconic Baltimore-set crime drama was one of pioneering series which led to writers becoming the “dominant force in television, rather than sponsors or actors”. 

“The Wire typified that, it was all about David Simon and his team of writers, who were extraordinary,” West said.  

“And the timing of technology and boxsets, enabled The Wire to become what many TV shows have become since, which is a sort of modern novel: long-form, in-depth drama.  

“That was at the start of this golden age of TV dramas. And maybe lots of television people say we’re post-peak TV now, and that era is perhaps drawing to an end, but it was an incredibly rich time.” 

Peters agreed the series’ emergence at the cusp of technological advances gave it the best of both worlds, allowing it to breathe in a viewing environment unhindered by multiple streamers, series, social media and distracting smartphones. 

“There’s absolutely [too much clutter now]. You have to remember that when The Wire was out, there wasn’t as much information on this little machine [pointing at a mobile phone] as there is now,” he added.  

“There weren’t as many distractions, so it gave a viewer a chance to exercise their intellect. You had to sit with it, and it made you think. Long-form gives the viewer a chance to exercise their minds. It sparks debate and conversation.” 

Beyond the Silk Road offers a similarly cerebral experience, Peters and West said. The two actors, who became close friends during the filming of The Wire reunited for Blink Films’ feature doc to explore the country, culture and people of Kyrgyzstan.  

In the doc, which is distributed internationally by Blue Ant Rights, the pair draw from the shared love of the outdoors and horsemanship through which they first bonded, to ride through the Central Asian country, guided by Kyrgyzstan expert and British adventurer Alexandra Tolstoy.  

“What it did bring up in me is the possibility of doing other travelogues or journeys like this,” Peters said. “Today, with everything shifting in politics and humanity, for a Black American and a white Englishman to be going around the world to different cultures – there’s really some value in that.” 

West said the camaraderie between the friends was “very much intrinsic” to the doc and makes it accessible travelogue as much as hard historical documentary. However, it allowed the team to “shine a light on an areas which we don’t know much about”. 

“It’s really liberating, especially when you get to talk to people like Alexandra and all the friends we met out there,” he said. “Trying to understand a culture you don’t know anything about.” 

Tolstoy added: “It is very politically relevant, because the people of Kyrgyzstan are stuck between China and Russia. They’re very much in the Russian orbit, and with Ukraine and Putin [still rumbling], and people are trying to get influence over them, just like during the Victorian Great Game [the 19th century battle between British and Russian empires to gain influence over Central Asia].”