Bafta winner’s Scotland-set surrogacy thriller a twisty, torrid tale for our times
The nest of the title is quite something, writes Aidan Smith
Martin Compston says it was liberating to be able to go Scots in his new drama after all those years operating undercover in Line of Duty in a Cockney accent.
So how is he spending his break from secret meetings with his Pearly Queen sidekick in a backroom of the old Bull & Bush eating jellied eels washed down with Lahndan Pride beer as “Guv” tells them how they’re going to snare yet more bent coppers?
He’s Dan Docherty, selfmade Glasgow big shot. In his world women are lassies, kids are weans and what does he call bampots? That’s right, bampots.
He’s married to a lassie who desperately wants a wean but can’t have one of her own.
I’m pure made-up gantin’ about this surrogacy thriller being Scotland-set when the usual place for it might have been a trendy bifold-doorsand-kale-heavy corner of the metropolis and writer Nicole Taylor has woven a twisty and torrid tale.
How has Docherty made his loot? It’s a while before property development was mentioned in the opener and the business probably isn’t all legit, given that the body of a man turns up in the Clyde in the closing scene – but until then the big issue was his wife Emily’s desolate despair after repeated IVF failures and the attempt by Dan’s sister to carry a baby for her ended in miscarriage.
The nest of the title is quite something. We still get open-plan. A Californian beach-house appears to have been plonked on a wideload trailer and driven to the banks of Loch Lomond. Okay, so the vista is grimly grey every morning but have you got a problem with that, pal? The house is plenty big enough for a kid, says Kaya (Mirren Mack).
She’s the cuckoo in the nest. A damaged 18-year-old with a troubled past who enters the Dochertys’ orbit when Emily (Sophie Rundle) almost knocks her down, she learns about their plight and spots an opportunity. Kaya may be poor but she’s not cowed by her situation. Up on the roof in Possilpark, a neighbour asks: “What do you do when you’re no’ flingin’ toasters aff the tap o’ buildings?”
Kaya: “I’m going to be an entrepreneur.” Neighbour: “Good for you.” Kaya: “You ken that lassie who invented the bra – Michelle Mone? Now she’s a baroness or some f**k. That’s going to be me!”
In The Nest
Emily is more keen on using Kaya as a surrogate than Dan who, as a product of the same school of hard knocks, making something of himself out of nothing, having been a “wee d*ck” in his youth, wonders if she can be trusted. Because he couldn’t, presumably. Docherty’s lawyer/minder, played by David Hayman, seems dodgy. We suspect this because his office runs on low-wattage lightbulbs.
That’s just about the only cliche here, though. The Nest is ripped from the headlines with the UK government having just completed consultation on whether it should be legal for couples to pay surrogates, as happens in other countries.
Glasgow-born Taylor, a Bafta-winner for Three Girls, which told the story of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, writes with real empathy and insight about sad, desperate lives in tough schemes and Mack delivers a stunning performance. Pure dead brilliant, in fact.
The Nest continues next Sunday at 9pm on BBC1
“You ken that lassie who invented the bra – Michelle Mone? Now she’s a baroness or some f**k. That’s going to be me!”
KAYA