Charlotte Regan on new BBC crime drama Mint

Star-crossed lovers soar in Mint, Charlotte Regan’s new Scottish crime series. A Romeo & Juliet setup provides a prism through which two kids from opposite sides of the tracks subvert expectations in the country’s gangster hinterlands.

Over last summer, Regan, cast and crew filmed in uncharacteristic sunshine. “We got so lucky,” the filmmaker tells me ahead of Mint’s launch on iPlayer. “All of last year when shooting, there was one day that was rained off, and the rest of it was glorious sun.” This sunny spell was particularly useful for one of the key visuals of the series, where Shannon (Emma Laird) and Arran (Benjamin Coyle-Larner, aka musician Loyle Carner) are suspended from rigs high off the ground, with Grangemouth punctuating the skyline like grimy princess towers.

This is a world where love joyously sets you free. “I love watching stuff where I feel how the character feels,” says Regan, “to be telling a story from that character’s perspective. So I don’t need to see Shannon and Arran sleep together to know that they have this form of love with one another. To me, seeing them flying, that’s the feeling you get when you’re falling in love.”

Across her music videos, acclaimed shorts and debut feature film, the Sundance Jury Prize-winning Scrapper, Regan has shown a flair for confident visual choices, from monochrome palettes to horses appearing out of nowhere to talking spiders. Reflecting on the emergence of this style, Regan shares that “all my friends I grew up around, they make incredible rap music, and I was always so inspired by music videos that were just wild. They are such visual mediums, so many incredible people in that world taught me.”

Shannon (Emma Laird) and Arran (Benjamin Coyle-Larner) in Mint

In Mint, Shannon, her mum Cat (Laura Fraser), and her gran Ollie (Lindsay Duncan), each have to battle between their relationships with men and their desire for freedom. “I love gangster stuff, and I had this time where I watched one, after having watched hundreds of them,” recalls Regan, “and suddenly realised I never see the women, or I do but very briefly, and they seem to be the backbone of the family.

“I got sick of seeing a damsel in distress. I wanted to start [Mint] as that kind of cliché, and I really wanted by the end of it to be totally against that.” Regan explains that the initial idea for the show all began with Shannon’s gran, Ollie, a gun-toting erotica fan. “I just felt like I hadn't seen any Ollies on screen,” meaning older women who are sex-daft. “And I know there are Ollies because my nan was mad on the bingo, and I spent every weekend with her; the bingo halls were popping off.”

Tackling stereotypes of genre and gender, Mint shows us how these limits create closets of varying kinds, and not just for women. Speaking about the head of the household, Dylan (Sam Riley), Regan says: “Growing up in a working-class world, Dylan is very much taught what to be and how to exist. He’s got such a small space to manoeuvre around. Similar to Arran, they are the vulnerable ones, characters I know who are out there, who are struggling, living an existence that they don’t quite agree with.”

Shannon’s brother, Luke (Lewis Gribben), hints at how things could be different, escaping into university. This train of thought grew from Regan thinking about her nan, who grew up at a time when “a woman had to marry a man, that was your chance for survival. Like, what kind of life would she have had if she were born when I was born?”

Charlotte’s connection to Scotland goes back to childhood. “My nan and grandad were Scottish. I loved coming here for the summer holidays, my favourite six weeks in the world.” It was a job directing episodes of the 2023 drama The Buccaneers, which filmed across Glasgow and Edinburgh, that cemented her love for Scotland and introduced her to a crew, many of whom were brought on to make Mint. “[The Buccaneers] was one of the best filming experiences of my life, entirely because of the incredible crew. Couldn’t make it without them.”

A great time was had on Mint, too. There were games of padel and three to four games of football a week – “my knees are actually suffering now,” she says of that gruelling five-a-side schedule – as well as crew hangouts at Haylynn Canteen near Glasgow’s Victoria Park. “My friend Robbie owns and is the chef there,” says Regan. “It’s the most delicious food ever. You have to try it out.” Production meetings, meanwhile, took place in Kelvingrove, and plenty of generous grannies gave all their treats to Regan’s dog, Eddie, who appears in the show.

With Mint now out in the world, there are clear skies ahead. “I’ve not had much time off in the past two years,” says Regan, “so I’m gonna spend time with my dog, help him on his weight loss journey, and play lots of football. Oh, and sleep. Can’t wait to nap.”

That said, Charlotte is also working on two films and is going to see which one emerges as her next shoot. There is also the tantalising concept of a Mint spin-off. Ollie and Luke do Ibiza? “I’m pitching it!”

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All eight episodes of Mint are available on BBC iPlayer now. The show also airs on BBC One on Mondays, with repeats on Sundays

Filmography (selected): Mint (2026, TV), The Responder (2024, TV), The Buccaneers (2023, TV), Bikes (2023, short), Scrapper (2023), No Ball Games (2020, short), My Boy (2019, short), Oats & Barley (2019, short), Standby (2026, short)