Pride, shame and regret in this superb retelling of the Troubles
There are so many terrible stories in Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland (BBC Two), that it’s difficult to know where to start. But let’s begin with Michael Mcconville. He is asked in this documentary if he has many memories of his mother. “The only memory that really sticks in my head,” he replies, “was the night she was taken away.”
Jean Mcconville was abducted from her home in Belfast by the IRA in 1972. Four women came to the house and marched her out. Her eight youngest children were left to fend for themselves; their father had recently died of cancer. It took 30 years for the IRA to admit they had murdered Jean and buried her body on a beach. One of her “crimes”, Michael said, was to have shown mercy to a British soldier she saw lying injured in the street.
This follow-up to Once Upon a Time in Iraq documents the Troubles over five episodes, through a series of personal histories. It is a superb piece of work, not merely a litany of horrors but an opportunity for those involved to look back. Director James Bluemel has sought out a range of interviewees from both sides of the conflict. They include former IRA members and loyalist paramilitaries who consider their actions with varying degrees of pride, shame or regret.
Former British soldiers also speak.
And then there are the relatives. The widow of John Proctor, an RUC officer shot dead at the hospital where he was visiting his newborn baby. The daughter of hunger striker Joe Mcdonnell, who appeared on US television aged 10, appealing to Ronald Reagan to intervene. Her father died days later, and remains her hero. “My daddy,” she keeps saying.
The documentary does its best to explain how Northern Ireland got to this place: the sectarianism, discrimination felt by Catholics, the resentment towards British troops on the streets, the spiralling, tit-for-tat nature of the murders. “Hate begets hate begets violence, and that’s what we did to each other here,” says one contributor. “They weren’t bad people. They weren’t horrible people. They did horrible things.” That’s debatable.
Only one interviewee seems wholly unrepentant: a republican woman who grew up with a poster of Bobby Sands on her bedroom wall and who sniggers at mention of the Brighton bombing. “Pity they didn’t get her,” she says of Margaret Thatcher. But some have put hate and bitterness behind them, difficult though that may be. Michael Mcconville says: “To any person involved in taking away my mother and killing her, I wouldn’t wish this on any of their family. And I really mean that.”
Is Bafta too snooty about ITV dramas? At the television awards this month, the two ITV contenders for best mini-series – The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe and A Spy Among Friends, both excellent – were beaten by Mood, a millennial drama for BBC Three about influencers and sex work, adapted from a play at the Royal Court.
Maryland might buck the trend, because it’s an ITV drama but doesn’t behave like one. It starts with a mystery. A woman is found dead on an Isle of Man beach. Daughter Becca (Suranne Jones), receives the call from police and is baffled: her mother, Mary, was supposed to be on a caravan holiday in Wales with her friend Maureen. It soon transpires that Mary was leading a double life, involving a debonair male friend (Hugh Quarshie), and an American woman (Grease’s Stockard Channing, of all people) whom we first meet picking up a batch of marijuana.
What follows is a low-key study of family dynamics, particularly the relationship between Becca and her sister, Rosaline (Eve Best). Both women put in fine performances but Best has the more vibrant role. The sisters are half-estranged. Rosaline is a single career woman who lives in London and wears cashmere. The more harried Becca stayed close to home and has fallen into the same role as her mum: looking after her husband and kids, keeping an eye on her parents and being taken for granted. I suspect women will enjoy this series more than men will.
The characters speak and behave like real human beings, including George Costigan as Mary’s husband. Becca says of her mum’s secret life: “Do you know how many times I’ve popped to Aldi for some bits, the trips to Dunelm Mill… not once has she mentioned any of this.” It’s a lesson for us all: the person sitting across from you in that armchair or on the other end of a weekly phone call isn’t just a spouse or a parent, but a person in their own right, with an inner life. There are no thrills here, but there are truths. Well, apart from the location: it may be set on the Isle of Man, but it was filmed in Ireland.
Once Upon a Time in Northern
Ireland ★★★★★
Maryland ★★★★