'You take its legs, and I'll take its... legs.'

-

*Derry Girls season 3*

The appearance of a Hollywood star with a particular set of skills (and still no match for Uncle Colm) in the season 3 premier of Derry Girls wasn't a surprise for me as it was with live viewers because it was trending on Twitter when I logged on to do podcast stuff (have I mentioned I make a podcast?) early the next morning. Yes, in 2022 in the UK, the masses still don't consider that a load of us don't have or watch live broadcast television for a multitude of reasons and get caught up later, as is our wont well into the age of on-demand catch-up services. 

Liam Neeson's turn as an RUC officer was quite the boon, and to see him bested by Uncle Colm's (Kevin McAleer) filibustering was nothing short of masterful, and the weans were acted off the screen all round by the older generations in this one. But the A-story's edgy hilarity served to mask the deep darkness of the B-story in which Granda Joe's (Ian McElhinney) taken-in-cat, Seamus, has likely murdered a pet rabbit owned by neighbour Jim's granddaughter (Robert Calvert and Darcey McNeeley). Joe's air of threat comes to the fore as he strong-arms Gerry (Tommy Tiernan) into helping him 'disappear' the body in the borderland countryside in the dead of night. 

The writing, acting and shot compositions detailing every stage of this scenario, for me, were shockingly chilling. I admit, I laughed at the sequences and delivery of lines, but more out of shock and carried by the rhythms established in the A-story, itself daring in its boldness, if more explicit in its execution.

I've had the privilege of seeing McElhinney perform live on stage as well as across a wide range of screen appearances (including in Duncan Campbell's Make It New John). Given his acting history, I have no doubt he will have been aware of paramilitary disappearances throughout his adult life. Joe's implied threats to Gerry in the car could easily belong to a straight crime thriller if recontextualised. His nuanced delivery of dialogue and fixed look on his harangued son-in-law with no hint of self-consciousness treads the fine line between comedy and psychosis - blending them, even, and leaving the audience to confront our own reactions.

After the episode percolated for a bit, I began to worry that the families of the Disappeared would see the episode and be very seriously re-traumatised by it. The whole scenario playing out and the shots of the car in the field transported me to difficult research on artistic works that examine and draw attention to the sickly spectre of this insidious part of the Northern Ireland conflict's legacy. I only lived it vicariously through study.  I feel ill at the thought of the families' potential upset at the idea of the heinous acts that took their loved ones being used for laughs.

The strongest comedy is right on the knife edge. Growing up in Northern Ireland, especially if you are old enough to remember any part of active conflict, gives you a very sardonic and - for others - disturbing take on what can be a punchline. I've learned to keep a lot to myself in England for that reason. We've a totally different calibration of humour. Whatever we make of this story - and I oscillate on it continually - the writing was outstanding. 

My next issue is that most of the audience for Derry Girls, certainly in Britain, will not have the faintest clue as to the significance of this B-story. Sure, it's just aul Irish duffers doing more mad things. They won't necessarily realise that Jim's spine-chilling domestic interrogation of Joe inter-cut with the RUC's ineffective questioning of the girls and Colm is painfully close to the bone. The pettiness of the scenario and projecting how it is dealt with onto small pets make it funny, but the threat and potential for tit-for-tat cycles of violence are all too real, and all the more disturbing if you recognise it. 

I found the first two seasons joyfully and painfully nostalgic, and season 3's start has pushed that dichotomy to extremes. Many fans are already mourning the series' end, but I'm wondering how I'll get through it unscathed.


 

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe and visit https://www.buymeacoffee.com/peablair to support my work - thank you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You owe me twenty quid: Tyres in Spaced

-
Image
15 May 2020 Last week Becca Harrison tweeted about re-watching the turn-of-the-millennium Channel 4 sitcom, Spaced , and some of its most quotable lines (concerning jaffa cakes in coat pockets) and imitable actions (mimed shoot out). Being an Ulsterperson, my fondness for the show often homes in on Tyres played by Belfast-born, Holywood-bred actor Michael Smiley (if you're a Ben Wheatley fan, you ought to recognise him). This train of thought, not for the first time, got me thinking about the significance of Tyres. When Spaced first aired in September 1999, Northern Ireland was a year-and-a-half into its fragile official peacetime following (and not quite yet distinct from) the prior thirty years of conflict. I was in my mid-teens and it was only when I reached my early and mid-twenties that I fully understood the characters in the show, especially the oddities of being a grown-up but feeling not as mature as your age suggested, of feeling the ageing process but still being
Read more

Spirited Away

-
Image
22 May 2020 Back in what feels like the beforetimes in February, Netflix began a staggered release of Studio Ghibli films, which put me in the mood to revisit many of them as well as see the few I'd missed for the first time. As the Covid-19 crisis became more apparent and lockdown was (finally and suddenly) introduced in the UK, the desire in particular to find comfort in Sprited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2001) grew all the more. It's a film I've watched a few times before, and I enjoy the experience of seeing the works in both the original Japanese and English dubs. When Channel 4 ran a Studio Ghibli season, oh goodness, 10 to 15 or perhaps more years ago, only the dubbed versions were shown. But Netflix gives fantastic options for audio and subtitle combinations, and this time round it has to be the Japanese. In early April my anxiety concerning the pandemic was overwhelming, and getting it under control led to fatigue. One afternoon I had to admit defeat and lie i
Read more

Shadow Dancer

-
*DISCLAIMER: I am writing about the film with an approach to critical analysis with only a hint of review, therefore there are spoilers within if you have not seen the film. This post serves as a line of thought that I am archiving for later development.* It appears that reviews of Shadow Dancer (Marsh, 2012) have not been entirely complimentary, as far as I am aware (I am deliberately avoiding them so feel free to correct me), and seem largely to have been written by men. The film is much more than critics and general commenters deem it to be (e.g. one I came across stated that this is yet another Troubles film making the IRA out to be scum). Shadow Dancer does not attempt to depict the Northern Ireland conflict through a microcosmic narrative, rather it draws out a suppressed individual struggle within patriarchal organizations, and in doing so attempts to reflect the hidden lives many were forced to lead. The most striking aspect of Shadow Dancer for me is its evocation
Read more