Mint review: Shakespeare would be proud of this visually-inventive tale of star-cross'd lovers

A tale of warring families and star-cross'd lovers, it perhaps owes more to Baz Luhrmann than Stratford-upon-Avon, but it makes for a compelling story.

Set against the backdrop of council estates and oil refineries of Grangemouth, on the banks of the Firth of Forth, it's a visually inventive fairy tale which, on the evidence of the first two episodes, looks set to end in tears.

Shannon (Emma Laird) is the daughter of crime boss Dylan (Sam Riley), whose success in the underworld has allowed him to move out of town to a big house in the countryside – but he can still see the flare stacks and smoking chimneys reminding him of where he came from.

Dylan's wife Cat (Laura Fraser) knows what her husband does for a living, and while it seems to weigh on her mind, she can ignore it as long as she has romance in her life and the promise of the hope and happiness it brings.

Meanwhile, Dylan is intending to step away from his crime empire, leaving an array of heavies – all either bearded, or shaven-headed, or bearded and shaven-headed – jostling to succeed him.

There is a spanner in the works, however, in the form of the Danson family, an upstart crew based in a ramshackle garage who are threatening Dylan's hard won, but ill-gotten, gains.

In a meet-cute at a railway station, Shannon meets Arran (Ben Coyle-Larner), one of the Danson boys, and sparks literally fly.

And so these two families – not so like alike in dignity, in this instance – are set on a collision course, as the relationship between Shannon and Arran deepens. A relationship seemingly encouraged on the one hand by Arran's brother LiAngelo, and frowned upon by Shannon's family.

Particularly, it seems, Shannon's hard-as-nails nan Ollie (Lindsay Duncan), who is already fuming at Dylan's decision to step down.

Mint is a heady brew of myth, Shakespeare and the Sopranos but is determined to plough its own furrow, with imagery making magic out of the post-industrial landscape of Scotland.

Shannon and Arran, in the throes of young love, literally levitate above the ground as they fall for each other, while the merest touch of a hand is accompanied by a glowing, glittering shower of sparks.

Meanwhile, the conflict between the two crime families is shown in slo-mo, a stylised but brutal fight between tooled-up but elegantly-suited men.

The day-to-day, in contrast, is rooted in reality. Dylan's swanky house is clearly a new-build in the middle of nowhere, all porcelain tiles and seemingly no garden, but fields which seem to collide with the factories in faraway Grangemouth.

Their cars aren't swanky new ones, but old Mercedes or Rovers, while the heavies all use mucky Land Rovers.

It makes the contrast with Arran and Shannon's sweet, slow-burn romance, all soft-focus and tinged with gold, even more jarring.

Laird and Coyle-Larner – better known as Brit Award-nominated hip hop star Loyle Carner– are terrific, their romance making them blind to everything around them.

Fraser's fragile Cat lights up when she hears anything involving romance, but Lindsay Duncan steals evey scene she's in as the sexually voracious, say anything Ollie.

She clearly still has son Dylan tied to her apron strings, but dotes on Shannon, but you get the feeling she will allow nothing to endanger the success of the criminal empire she and her husband built up.

It's a familiar story, this one, but Mint tells it in such a bravura way, one the constantly wrong-foots and delights you, that you fall in love it with it.

You feel the Bard of Avon would be proud.