The inside story on...

THE DRY

A thirtysomething woman with a dysfunctional family and a brittle, control-freak sister, a toxic relationship with alcohol and a life of woeful underachievement. If you’re looking for something to scratch that Fleabag itch, then try The Dry which lands on

ITVX this week after debuting on Britbox last year. The wryly funny Irish drama tells the story of Shiv Sheridan (Roisin Gallagher), who’s newly sober and finding staying on the wagon difficult after she’s thrown back into life with her flawed family in Dublin.

Creator Nancy Harris, who’s written for The Good Karma Hospital, says she wrote it after addiction touched her life. ‘But every time I’d ever seen addiction represented on screen it had always been in the most extreme way, such as somebody in rehab,’ she says. Shiv, on the other hand, is coping fairly well with sobriety until she finds herself negotiating the minefield of family life.

After a decade partying in London, she’s lost her job and her drinking buddies, so decides to move home for a fresh start, but faces simmering tensions. Her dad Tom (Ciarán Hinds) is having an affair with his acupuncturist, and her mum Bernie (Pom Boyd) has never recovered from the death of her eldest child

Carl. It’s Shiv’s squabbles with her surviving siblings – especially sister Caroline (Siobhán Cullen) but also brother Ant (Adam Richardson) – that provide the poignant comedy.

‘When you have hilarity and heartbreak so close together, that’s really clever and impactful,’ says Belfast-born Roisin, who turns 36 this month and for whom The Dry is her first significant TV role. ‘That’s what gets me most excited as a viewer as well as a performer.’

Shiv is a complex character facing up to her past but who keeps making mistakes. ‘Sometimes I want to hug her and sometimes I want to give her a bit of a kick up the a***,’ says Roisin. ‘I’m hoping viewers will feel that too.’

To help her portray an alcoholic she listened to the audio version of Russell Brand’s book Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions as well as podcasts about addiction, and talked to Alcoholics Anonymous members. ‘I found out what AA meant for them and the kind of environment it puts a person into – who they might meet, what they might experience,’ she says. ‘And how they manage to deal with their family, friends and the people closest to them who maybe knew them before.’

Making The Dry turned into a

real-life family affair for Ciarán Hinds when his wife, Hélène Patarot, was cast as Mina, the acupuncturist Tom’s having an affair with. He’s also worked with his daughter Aoife – in 2020’s The Man In The Hat. ‘It’s a great pleasure working with them,’ laughs Ciarán, 70. ‘But I am wondering whether they’re now just sending the family along to look after me in my old age!’

When you have hilarity and heartbreak so close together, that’s really clever and impactful