Red Rose BBC Three | iPlayer
Marriage BBC One | iPlayer
Bad Sisters Apple TV+
The Sky at Night BBC Four | iPlayer
A horror show called Red Rose? Not a docuseries on Labour’s performance at the 2019 general election, but a BBC/Netflix collaboration from Eleven, the rapidly-rising production outfit that brought us Sex Education. The Red Rose in question is a creepy app that, downloaded on to the phones of post-GCSEs teens in Bolton, Lancashire, begins to manipulate them, on a spectrum from snogging their best friend’s boyfriend to suicide-possibly-murder.
There’s a core group of friends loosening their school ties ahead of summer: the headstrong Rochelle, the beautiful Wren, the sharp-witted Ash, the nerdy Taz and the sweet Antony. Their plans for summer include getting pissed on the nearby moors, not terrorisation via iOS.
The idea of a horror series located in a northern British town is a great one, given how rare horror is on UK screens and how London-centric TV drama is here. It’s a similar vibe to how Stranger Things’ eerie Upside Down was discovered in a rural town in Indiana and not the New York subway.
But with shows in which viewers are required to suspend disbelief to immerse themselves in the supernatural (and there are definitely not-of-this-realm elements to the menacing Red Rose, including a flickering, ghost-like figure hiding in camera mode), the details of authentic existence have to be just that. There are perfectly pitched realities here: food bank use and pre-payment meters flashing zero will be familiar in a cost-of-living crisis, but certain elements are head-scratching.
Why, for example, is a kid in 2022 filming a party with a camcorder? And while there is a vogue for playing with time and setting (see the brilliant The End of the F***ing World and its mashup of droll modern-day teens, with 60s architecture and soundtrack), there is a particular stylistic choice in Red Rose that has, appropriately, haunted me: a motif of a choral version of Aqua’s Barbie Girl. I’m a big fan of juxtaposition in television soundscapes, but in this case we get mourners throwing dirt on a coffin to a quivering voice singing “life in plastic/ it’s fantastic”, which would maybe work if the person had died of a botched cosmetic procedure, but literally only then.
Nevertheless, Red Rose reminds me a bit of the breakout tech-thriller Chloe, in that I was adamant I did not like it, then watched the first three episodes with nary a loo break. I’m intrigued as to whether the malevolent app will turn out to be purely of the paranormal variety, or will go the route of Black Mirror’s Shut Up and Dance episode, which featured black-hat coders, the likes of which are generally terrifying and already wreaking havoc IRL.
From teens to parents: Nicola Walker (Emma) and Sean Bean (Ian) have been married for 27 years, with a uni-age adopted daughter, Jess, and a son who died, although we don’t immediately know how. From writer Stefan Golaszewski (Mum; Him & Her), Marriage will divide audiences into those who think it slow and plotless, and those who think it beautiful in its quietness and characterisation. We open with Emma and Ian bickering about a jacket potato in an airport cafe, before she offers a supportive hand to soothe his fear of flying. This gentle back-and-forth sets the tone. Sure, nothing much happens in episode one, but that’s rather the point. Ian, who has lost his job and his mother (unclear what Lady Bracknell would make of this), loads the dishwasher a lot. Emma’s attempts to talk to her elderly father go unrewarded. The silences in Marriage make Pinter seem like a chatterbox.
If I’m honest, the monotony of this suburban life rather horrifies me. But there is a lot of love, kindness and loyalty – something that Jess’s obnoxious, snobbish boyfriend on a visit from London is too entitled to appreciate (as in Red Rose, we’re in the north). There are wonderful observations: Ian’s lonely loitering and friendly but extended conversations with a millennial receptionist crosses into mild harassment – though he is mortified when he realises. And there are developments on the horizon: I’m wondering about the history between Emma and her smarmy, younger boss (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) at her office job. There are four episodes, and I care enough about these characters to continue. It should go without saying that Walker and Bean are excellent throughout.
Meanwhile, there are darker goings on in the Garvey family; five Irish sisters, with vastly differing personalities but shared loyalties, in Sharon Horgan’s latest, Bad Sisters (the concept is borrowed from a Belgian show, transferred to just outside Dublin, and is an AppleTV+ original). The pilot is called The Prick, and within seconds we’re confronted with a corpse in an open coffin with an unfortunate erection. You know Bad Sisters is going to be immense fun, and smart – especially when the next shot is Horgan’s Eva holding a hose at waist-height watering some roses.
The deceased prick (and prick) in question is/was John Paul, the controlling, brutish husband of Anne-Marie Duff’s Grace. He’s even worse than Jess’s boyfriend in Marriage. That John Paul ends up dead and four of the five sisters despised him does not go unnoticed by an insurance broker desperate to avoid paying out a life policy – something possible if he can prove foul play. Given that in flashback we’ve seen the sisters cackling about how they might murder John Paul (“I’d feed him to sharks!”), it’s not an awful hunch. Cue a black comedy of investigation.
As you might expect, Bad Sisters is a hoot, with some fantastic set pieces, both gentle and elaborate: sea swimming on Christmas Day; gas explosions in wood cabins; Lizzo concerts. The cast is exquisite, and includes man-of-the-moment Daryl McCormack (better known as Leo Grande). There are 10 episodes in all, and I intend to eke them out.
To Warwick University, where The Sky at Night presenter Chris Lintott gets to view, along with buzzing students, the very first images – “stunning, iconic, beautiful”, as Lintott accurately describes them – from the James Webb space telescope. “Many people have been waiting 20 years for this moment,” he tells us, which explains why all of the scientists and professors who contribute to this programme are fizzing with excitement.
Lintott takes us on a road trip of experts: Dr Hannah Wakeford at Bristol University explains exoplanets to us; a Cardiff academic schools us on dying stars. Watching The Sky at Night is, for mainstream audiences, like reading A Brief History of Time, or the joy I explicitly felt in 2012 when Cern’s Large Hadron Collider detected the Higgs boson particle. A discovery only bettered by finding out last week that Olivia Newton-John’s grandfather was the physicist, Nobel prize winner and subject of my school study project, Max Born. The result of The Sky at Night is that I spent last night ordering physics books online; it’s a half hour everybody on the planet can enjoy.
What else I’m watching
Echoes
(Netflix)
Look, there’s never going to be a solo performance of twins better than Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, but Michelle Monaghan gives it a good go in this thriller. Gina and Leni keep switching identities – which is a messy enough existence, but becomes even harder when one of them goes missing.
Cincinnati Open
(Amazon Prime)
At the time of writing, Emma Raducanu just dispatched Serena Williams in the first round. Amazon’s rights for both the men’s and women’s tours means fans have been able to watch tennis year-round, and this is one of the final tournaments before the big one: the US Open.
University Challenge
(BBC Two)
After 28 years – even longer than Marriage’s marriage – Jeremy Paxman is stepping down from hosting everybody’s favourite wholesome experience of feeling dumb. I’ve been amusing myself by seeking out some of the funniest clips from past episodes online.
