Rounding up The Sopranos

It’s popular, it celebrates the darker side of human nature and it’s come out of a country famed for its holier-than-thou dramas with a nice little moral-of-the-story at the end of them. For those among us who like to see the lid lifted on those glossy all-American surfaces and have a good nose at the dark underbelly beneath, The Sopranos, HBO's much-trumpeted series, is big on revenge, crime, bad psychology and grudges.

With its dark theme tune, by UK musical vagrants Alabama 3, the show brings us a cast of characters in a sleepy part of New Jersey, headed up by brooding family man Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), also the acting head of a Mafia crime family. We also meet his wife Carmela, their daughter Meadow and son AJ.

As capo of a crime family the pressure of facing up to difficult decisions (Hmm, who shall I take out today?) triggers panic attacks - not really an affliction a tough, trigger-happy mafia boss is meant to suffer. So to help him get through a tough day at the office he starts to see psychiatrist Dr Melfi (Lorraine Bracco).

His rather stressful job - and trying to keep, up a respectable cover as a Waste Management consultant – inevitably lead to plenty of family strife. But it’s not just the mafia stuff that proves problematic – it’s his inability to be faithful to his wife, his controlling, manipulative mother and Uncle Junior, the psychotic incumbent leader of the Mafia family, who hands control over to Tony as he is investigated. So Dr Melfi really does earn that cheque.

2nd February 2007