The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review Thanks a million to those forever young Derry girls
WHAT a difference a lockdown makes. Normal People, an adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, had us swooning. Oh how we luxuriated in the long, pause strewn conversations as first love blossomed in all its glory.
Now we have
Conversations with Friends (BBC3, Sunday-Monday)
and the common cry (very common if you ask me) is “Oh, gerronwithit!” One viewer I know grew so impatient at the glacial pace she fast forwarded through a sex scene. For shame.
Conversations with Friends was Rooney’s debut novel, so complaints that it is too similar to Normal
People have things the wrong way round. The basic building blocks – first love, university, holidays in hot climes, etc – are the same but that is Rooney’s style. May as well complain about Austen setting too many stories in provincial England.
Three episodes in, as with Normal People, you will either be enthralled again or thoroughly bored. I was in the former camp and will be sticking around, though largely, it has to be said, for the property porn. That seafront house of Nick and Melissa is gorgeous, and we haven’t even stepped foot inside the villa in Croatia yet.
For the property snoopers among us, there is nothing quite like the thrill of seeing a “for sale” sign go up in your road. No more sneaking a casual peak through the window as you are passing, only to get caught. Finally, a look inside the extension that took longer to build than Venice and Rome combined.
How exciting, then, to see Scotland’s Home of the Year (BBC1 Scotland, Monday), rock up in Glasgow and the Clyde Valley. I like the Glesga round; it usually features somewhere ridiculously swanky bordering on gallus. The three picks here, however, were fine examples of impeccable taste. One family appeared to have inherited their furniture rather than buy it like the rest of us. Plus they had a child, a dog, two cats and a clean home. Have you ever seen the like?
After Michael Connelly’s Bosch novels found a good home on Amazon Prime it was perhaps
inevitable that The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix) should appear in some other streaming service’s sight. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defence lawyer whose life is so much of a hustle his office is a Lincoln town car.
Garcia-Rulfo had a hard act to follow given Matthew McConaughey’s performance in the movie, and at first the newcomer seems too young, too smooth, too handsome to be the ducking and diving Haller. He grows on you, though, and everything else, including the city of LA as a character in its own right, is as spot on as you would expect with David E Kelley (LA Law) in charge.
The other talk of the virtual steamie during lockdown was Joe Wicks and his phenomenally popular (100 million views) exercise classes. Soon after starting the sessions, he told us in the documentary Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood (BBC1, Monday), he began receiving emails from parents about the strains they were living under. Though Wicks at that point had not spoken of his own distressing childhood, one parent had OCD and the other was a drug addict, like recognised like.
While Wicks had survived those early years he had never explored them. In a bid to find some wisdom
to pass on, he sat down, cameras present, with his parents and others to talk. Watching Wicks the man revisit the hurt and bewilderment he had experienced as a child, coupled with the obvious distress of his parents, made for uncomfortable viewing. You had to wonder if it was wise to rip the bandage off still fresh wounds.
Similarly, the revelation that he can spend whole days replying to pleas for help was concerning. “He can’t save everyone, can he?” asked his wife. One wished Wicks all the best.
All right, hands up all those who were struck down with a bad case of “something in my eye” after watching the final episodes of Derry Girls (Channel 4, TuesdayWednesday)?
We thought it would all be over after a Halloween party, but then writer Lisa McGee came roaring back with an hour-long special set on the day of the Good Friday Agreement referendum.
In the best traditions of its homeland, Derry
Girls treated light matters seriously and serious matters lightly. Here was a tale of daft lassies (and James), alpha mammies, quiet dads and a lethally sarky nun, all played out against a background of life and death politics.
McGee tied things up in a beautiful and, whisper it,
profound way. Lots of parting lines to savour but the winner for me came from Michelle. “There’s no answer to any of this, is there?” she said, trying to make sense of the past. Thanks a million girls (and James), and may you stay forever young.