Back to Life
B OX S E T
This dark and quirky six-part comedydrama series co-written by and starring Daisy Haggard first aired on BBC3 last year and is now available on iPlayer.
Haggard plays Miri Matteson who returns home after 18 years in prison. The length of her jail sentence suggests that whatever crime she committed, it was fairly serious, but that is carefully kept from the audience through skilful scriptwriting that slowly teases out the truth in the final stages of the series.
Miri goes back to live with her parents – played by Geraldine James and Richard Durden – in the seaside town she left as a teenager. She no longer recognises the place, and a lot has changed in the world in general in the time she has been away. There is a moving scene in which she enters her childhood bedroom and reverts to a younger, more innocent version of herself, but she is not allowed to forget that she is an ex-con – she is vilified around town, struggles to get a job and her parents are unsure how to behave with her.
While that may sound a bit grim, all of this is imbued with moments of laugh out loud comedy (albeit much of it quite edgy) and there is a warmth and humanity running through the whole series. People are generally trying their best to do the right thing, especially Miri. And potential romance comes along in the form of kind, gentle neighbour Billy (Adeel Akhtar), who recognises a vulnerability and a spark in Miri that he finds intriguing.