DEBORAH’S MUST-WATCH TV CLASSICS

The Virtues (2019) C4

You don’t expect anything less than a powerful performance from Stephen Graham, right, and in The Virtues you get that in spades. But it isn’t pretty. Graham plays Joseph, whose life spirals out of control when his ex-partner and son emigrate to Australia. Writer Shane Meadows is not one to shy away from distress in these circumstances. There’s a dinner that is excruciatingly painful, as well as the best/worst bender since Patrick Melrose. The Virtues is mesmerising but so painful and sad that, at certain points, you do wonder if this misery is fetishised? It will probably prove rewarding but it is a difficult watch. Perhaps other dramas suffer from comparison with it because it is so naturalistic and authentic and gutpunching that nothing else stands much of a chance, and it’s five stars even though I can’t hear what anyone is saying half the time and keep having to rewind. Normally I would mind that quite significantly, but this is so compelling, I don’t even care. Graham is an absolute powerhouse as Joe, who has returned to Ireland, where he was abused as a child. We still don’t know how or by whom exactly. Our only clue has been in hazy flashbacks. His visit to the now derelict children’s home where it obviously took place sends him on another bender, and it is phenomenally painful. You do wonder: why am I watching when it hurts so much? I suppose it’s because you feel for him so significantly that to turn your gaze away, and not bear witness to his full story, would constitute a betrayal. Also, The Virtues never hits a false note. The scenes with his sister (spectacularly played by Helen Behan) are terrific, even if you do have to rewind umpteen times. But, again, I just don’t care.