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So good I’d rather watch it again than write this page

Deborah Ross

Am I Being Unreasonable? BBC1, Friday ★★★★★ Crossfire BBC1, Tuesday-Thursday ★★★★★

Am I Being Unreasonable? is written by and stars Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli, who play Nic and Jen, women who meet at the school gate and instantly become friends. Until it unravels. This is a funny, sharp, dark comedy-thriller with truth bombs dropping everywhere. There are six episodes (available on iPlayer) and I watched it through and I’m now ready to watch it again, I’m so crazy about it. In fact, I’m annoyed that I’m sitting here, writing this, when I could be watching it again. This may be the most resentful review you’ll ever read.

It’s set in a village in Gloucestershire and opens charmingly with a scene that could be from a romcom, with Nic on a station platform in her sheepskin coat – it will have its own story, this coat – as snow gently falls. She’s with the man she loves and there is laughing and kissing. But then something truly horrific happens. Tonal swerves. I forgot to mention those. This is funny, sharp, dark, and also, just when you’re feeling safe, it will take you somewhere shocking. This is, you could say, Motherland gone evil.

It was in the past, the train platform incident, although it will continue to haunt us, and now we spool to the present to meet Nic at home with her young son, Ollie (the brilliant Lenny Rush). She is bored of her husband, Dan (Dustin Demri-Burns), who is tediously reliable, like ‘an A4 envelope’.

Ollie is worried he’ll be late for school while Nic is reluctant to stir as she’s addicted to a reality programme. ‘Mum, school. Turn off the telly,’ he has to command. At the school gate one of the mothers is off with Nic, she doesn’t know why. ‘Do you think it’s because I didn’t sign up for the hedgehog hunt? I’m not making a potato salad for that…’

But at the school gate today is Jen, who has just moved to the area. A friendship begins, cemented at the school fair where they are forced to man the ‘splat a rat’ stall. Jen has brought gin. Nic couldn’t be happier. There is a raucous night of drinking and dancing. Nic loves Jen so much that, as she tells her, she’d make a far better husband than Dan. ‘You’d come to the Lush shop with me and let me look at the bath bombs without saying the smell was giving you a headache.’

But is Jen who she says she is? Is Nic? Is Dan? This could equally have been titled: Who Is The Reliable Narrator?

Cooper and Hizli knew each other at RADA but reconnected during lockdown when both were having a bad time. Cooper had realised she didn’t love her husband. Hizli’s work had dried up and she was stuck at home with young twins. What they have created is sad, awful, hilarious and unexpected. Watch out for everything. The coat, the cat (oh God, the cat), the sulky teenagers who work in the local shop. They’ll all come into play at some point. All the performances are excellent, particularly Cooper, who is a terrifically watchable actor. (She was wonderful as Peggotty in David Copperfield.)

This will inevitably be measured against the work of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billie Piper, Michaela Coel, Sharon Horgan, and it won’t come up wanting. Lastly, I wouldn’t sign up for a hedgehog hunt if I knew it would involve making a potato salad. So there’s a truth bomb, right there.

On to Crossfire, starring Keeley Hawes endlessly running up and down hotel corridors, ducking out of sight, then running again in a ‘holiday from hell’ scenario. It’s set in a resort where gunmen open fire on the guests as did, in fact, happen in Tunisia in 2015, killing 38 tourists. I can’t say if we were meant to think of that or not, but I did, and wondered: is it tasteful, turning that kind of experience into a schlocky thriller? I don’t know. You’ll have to decide for yourself. Hawes plays Jo, a former police officer on holiday with her husband (Lee Ingleby), with whom she has a frosty relationship, and two other families. She organised the holiday but had an ulterior motive. Flashbacks tell us this, and also explain her strained marriage. She hasn’t been the perfect wife, shall we say. When the gunmen start shooting, families are separated and you do wonder what you’d do in this situation. Jo does this: acquires a gun via the hotel manager and turns vigilante, like Bruce Willis in Die Hard except that didn’t take three hours, as it only took two.

This was billed as ‘pulse racing’ and there was much running up and down corridors and ducking, but I couldn’t care about anyone. Perhaps I’m just being mean because I’m resentfully writing this when I could be watching that show I’m crazy for. Am I being unreasonable? Chances are, I am.

Tv & Puzzles

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2022-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

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