I recently watched Red Rose on BBC iPlayer. It's an eight episode series about some fifth-year/year 12 children whose lives are fundamentally changed when one of them, Rochelle, downloads the titular app and things quickly take a sinister turn.
It's a compelling series, a mystery-horror with some really suspenseful and emotional sequences. I watched it over three nights, but it's engrossing, the sort of thing you could binge watch in a day, and is highly recommended by me.
I then watched Marriage, also on iPlayer, a four-part miniseries from Stefan Golaszewski, the creator of the brilliant Mum, and starring Sean Bean and Nicola Walker.
Halfway through the first episode, I was struggling. Ian (Sean Bean) has more recently been made redundant and tries to find human contact by making awkward conversation with people only tangentially knows, such as a receptionist at the gym, and comes across as desperate and a bit creepy.
It begins with Ian and Emma returning from a holiday in Spain and bickering because Emma got chips with their airport meal when Ian wanted a potato. It soon becomes clear they really aren't arguing about a potato, but there is something else going on.
Ian's wife, Emma (Nicola Walker) is a solicitor with a really sleazy boss, yet she doesn't have the strength to tell him that his behaviour is completely inappropriate.
Their adopted daughter, Jessica (Chantelle Alle) is an aspiring singer with a controlling and abusive boyfriend, someone Ian and Emma secretly loathe.
Emma is also put upon by her widowed and lonely father, Gerry, who creates flimsy excuses to see her, even if this means disrupting plans she's made with Ian.
The interactions between Gerry and Ian, Gerry and Emma and, to a lesser extent, Jessica and her parents, are really awkward with pregnant pauses that seem to last an eternity – they are often just uncomfortable silences.
The whole situation is exacerbated by a historical trauma as both Ian and Emma are bereaved, initially only hinted at when they go to a cemetery and stand by a grave with a very small headstone and then sit on the bench nearby, grieving separately.
The awkwardness in the first couple of episodes is almost cringe-inducing and is quite tough going. I was tempted to give up, but I'm glad I didn't because things happen in the fourth episode which makes everything worthwhile with a really emotional payoff, and a lovely denouncement.
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