Is there a more quintessentially British rite of passage than the post-sixth form group holiday? Perhaps yours was to Zante, or maybe its slightly classier cousin Ayia Napa? Maybe you went full Brits abroad on the strip in “Shag-aluf”?
It’s perhaps less likely that you opted to spend a week on the run from a group of drug-dealing murderers in Rotterdam after accidentally attempting to sell them five kilograms of 80 per cent pure heroin. But hey, it could happen to anyone.
Such is the premise of Then You Run, Sky’s gruesome new holiday thriller. Adapted from Zoran Drvenkar’s novel You, the eight-episode mini-series follows Tara (Normal People’s Leah McNamara), Stink (Rye Lane’s Vivian Oparah), Ruth (Yasmin Monet Prince) and Nessi (Isidora Fairhurst), a tight-knit group of rebellious London teenagers who find their party holiday re-routed from Zante to Rotterdam when Tara’s grandmother and sole carer unexpectedly dies.
Her absent father (Cillian O’Sullivan) is begrudgingly forced to step up, inviting her and her pals to stay with him in his lavish, glass-walled Dutch mansion with his equally lavish new Dutch girlfriend – all funded, apparently, by revenue from his success in advertising. Funny that.
If you can see where this is going, don’t get too cocky. Subtlety isn’t exactly the show’s forte – within the first half an hour Tara discovers that her extended family run a sprawling European drug ring after she stumbles on her uncle (The Fall’s Richard Coyle) torturing a poor German man outside of a restaurant, and finds out that her dad’s advert recording studio is actually an elaborate underground weed farm.
It is at this stage that Tara’s pals rock up, suitcases in tow and ready for a fun – if unexpected – week of Mary Jane and partying, only to find Tara in the midst of an accidental overdose on what turns out to be lethally-strong heroin, and her dad lying dead in a drinks’ freezer. Rather than calling the police or legging it to the next Flixbus home, they instead attempt to sell the heroin he has lying around his house, inadvertently ending up shilling it to its very owner, Tara’s uncle. Uh oh. This forces them on the run with a murdering gang of criminals hot on their heels.
And, exhale. “We should’ve gone to f**king Zante,” mutters Stink at one point. You don’t say.
Of course, thrillers nearly always ask their audience to suspend their disbelief, and it’s a pretty tall order here. However, once you accept that none of the characters’ decisions really make any sense (rule number one: don’t stop for snacks when you’re being actively pursued by bloodthirsty hitmen), and none of them come close to being at all likeable either, the show quickly becomes incredibly compelling.
Before you know it you’re thrown into car chases, shoot-outs, an unexpected pregnancy, bloody murder scenes and inordinate quantities of drugs, interspersed with cutting asides filled with the morbid humour that the show hangs on. Despite its slightly predictable set-up, Then You Run certainly isn’t simply a paint-by-numbers thriller – from its unique neon visual styling to the mysterious killing spree scenes which open each episode (and which we’ll presumably learn more about these, the more the show progresses), the action is thoughtful, deliberate and effective.
It is also aided by some truly stellar casting – Oparah in particular shines as Stink, the girl group’s ringleader, but Prince is often a scene stealer in the more understated role of Ruth, the goody-two-shoes and moral barometer of the group. There is also a surprise cameo, in the form of GoldenEye, Taken and X-Men star Famke Janssen, whose performance as ominous drug tycoon Dagmar is a fabulous addition to an already terrifying group of baddies.
With only three episodes available for review, it is tantalisingly difficult to predict where the drama will catapult to next. One thing’s for sure, though: they’re probably never going to make it to Shag-aluf.
