Showtrial (BBC One) | iPlayer
Sweetpea (Sky Atlantic/Now)
Social Studies (Disney+)
Alma’s Not Normal (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Is Showtrial (BBC One) the ultimate fast-paced Sunday-night thriller? Ben Richards’s series, from the same production stable as Line of Duty and Vigil, returned for a second series last week, and like the first outing it went in boots first. It wasn’t long before an ecowarrior was fatally rammed off his bike on a country road.
And as in the original series, which was dominated by an intoxicating Celine Buckens as the accused, you soon don’t care a hoot about the victim (in flashbacks, he’s posh and supercilious). It’s all about the offbeat, magnetic prime suspect – this time round, PC Justin Mitchell, played by This Is England’s Michael Socha, twitching in his remand-issue joggers; a study in repressed trauma. Mitchell’s lawyer, Sam Malik (Sherwood’s Bafta-winning Adeel Akhtar), is also buffering, hollowed out by personal grief and such incapacitating insomnia it makes his eyes simultaneously wild and dead.
The ambitious premise of Showtrial is that it looks at crime trials in the round: suspects, witnesses, police, prosecution and defence teams. Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones) and Nathalie Armin (The Batman) play the legal duo set on proving Justin’s guilt. As the episodes charge along, things get exceptionally busy: breakthroughs; setbacks; a pregnant woman in a car crash; anti-“woke” grumblings (“It’s a lot more complicated than just slogans”); a texting chat group that feels lifted straight from a police public trust news story (or, indeed, Line of Duty). An amateur porn/swingers storyline blows in from nowhere, nestling incongruously alongside excited detective talk of suspicious bike pedals and incriminating paint flakes.
There are times when Showtrial isn’t deft enough: to justify this much airtime for bike pedals, you’d need to be watching the Tour de France. The pace can also be a bit bumpy: Armin’s character is lumbered with a dreary, overcomplicated family problem that belongs in another drama entirely. What keeps you invested are the raw two-handers between Socha and Akhtar. The former, especially, is electrifying – a shapeshifting, lairy nightmare with psychological hot and cold taps both running at once. Worth watching for his performance alone.
It’s not often I start a review with a blast of the spoiler klaxon, but consider it done. Kirstie Swain’s new Sky Atlantic series Sweetpea (adapted from CJ Skuse’s YA novels) is an ink-black, six-part British comedy-drama about a mouse of a young woman driven to become a serial killer.
Ella Purnell (Jackie in Netflix hit Yellowjackets) plays Rhiannon, called Sweetpea by her dead-end local newspaper boss (Jeremy Swift) because he can’t remember her name. Even before her father dies, Rhiannon shuffles and cringes through life like an apologetic ghost, pulling out hair with stress, overlooked by everyone from the man she’s slept with (Jon Pointing) to her school bully (Nicôle Lecky). Inside, though, she’s quietly seething: the series opens with an internal monologue of who she’d like to kill. One night Sweetpea snaps. Crouching over the body of her first victim, she rasps: “Do you see me now?”
Looking ahead, the show shapes up as a Carrie-esque revenge fantasy as Sweetpea manages normal life and the beast inside. There’s a Fay Weldon She-Devil bite to the way she becomes sleeker, more assertive (and with great hair!), after killing. It’s all a bit derivative (female Dexter meets a more housetrained Villanelle), and sometimes the YA origins make things feel underdeveloped, but it’s intriguing nonetheless, with an assured, mischievous performance from Purnell.
Lauren Greenfield is the award-winning American film-maker who has produced youth documentaries such as Kids + Money and Thin. Now, in Social Studies, a five-part series on Disney+, she examines the hectic lives of Los Angeles teenagers, shadowing, interviewing, sharing access on their mobiles… Hang on, what? How did Greenfield manage to get living, breathing 21st-century teenagers to agree to her getting hold of their phones? That’s not documentary-making – it’s sorcery.
Social Studies runs from the sweetly basic (partying, friendship navigating) to the grimly predictable (body issues, photo-editing, cyberbullying), from the depressing (social media didn’t invent slut-shaming, but it sure as hell weaponised it) to the frankly terrifying (a rumour spreads that a school shooting is imminent). In one quiet, heartbreaking moment, a girl talks about “white-washing” herself to fit in with the in-crowd.
The series also inadvertently chronicles life post-pandemic: filming young people as they emerge blinking, confused, shaky, still wearing masks but raring to go after lockdown. The result is like Euphoria reborn as a verité documentary, but with the mundane daily grind left in. It would be interesting to know how actual teenagers feel about films such as these. For me, the view from Planet Adult is gut-wrenching, scary, albeit eerily familiar in ways studies of teenage life so often are.
British comedy’s “lady in pink” is back! Sophie Willan returns for a second and reportedly final series as the titular Julie Walters-obsessed wannabe thesp in her self-created, self-written Bafta-winning BBC Two comedy Alma’s Not Normal.
One of Bolton’s finest exports, and the only one to style it out in a coat that looks as if she’s ruthlessly skinned Bagpuss, Alma (Willan) returns to her home town after a dispiriting theatre stint playing “Tree number two in the silent forest of diversity”. She reconnects with fellow Bolton royalty, including her mental health-afflicted mother, Lin (Siobhan Finneran), leopard print-loving grandmother, Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne), and friend Leanne (Jayde Adams), now running a groovy bar on the back of a lorry.
The first series of Willan’s semi-autographical tale featured her forays into sex work. Alma’s Not Normal remains blackly, magically gobby (trying standup: “I like to start with a tit shake. I just feel it relaxes people”). Inside No 9’s Steve Pemberton shows up as a rascally uncle. There’s even an unexpected topless scene (I won’t reveal who). But series two is a much deeper, darker, more poignant dive into Alma, not to mention Willan, the place she came from and the people she so palpably loved. Cheerio, Alma. I can’t help feeling you’re leaving too soon.
Star ratings (out of five)
Showtrial ★★★★
Sweetpea ★★★
Social Studies ★★★★
Alma’s Not Normal ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Disclaimer
(Apple TV+)
Alfonso Cuarón’s new seven-part psychological thriller stars Cate Blanchett as a celebrated journalist in danger of having her past exposed in a novel. Poetically shot, it also stars Lesley Manville and, as Blanchett’s antagonist, Kevin Kline.
Solar System
(BBC Two)
The latest offering from Prof Brian Cox transports the Earthbound viewer on an exhilarating, CGI-fuelled journey into the mysteries of space, including intergalactic volcanic activity.
Curfew
(Paramount+)
Taut, uber-dystopian murder-mystery set in a society where men observe a nightly curfew because of violence to women. Adapted from the Jayne Cowie novel After Dark, it stars Sarah Parish and Mandip Gill.
