Stay and Wright’s script takes its pair of traumatised Londoners to the old country and refuses to let them or you take anything at face value. Booth’s Jamie is a charming until he isn’t PTSD sufferer who reads Krav Maga manuals and has a punching bag in the dining room. John-Kamen’s Maya is unflappable, determined, comfortable in her imminent motherhood and unable to close her eyes without seeing the attack. It’s not sensationalised or used for cheap drama, it’s just how they each cope with the violent change to their lives. Slightly broken, acknowledging that, building and rebuilding themselves even as the Whelan family notionally rebuild their inherited home.
The door is at the bottom of their garden and when Niamh asks them permission to leave an offering of raw meat for the Red Caps that live in the forest behind it, Maya refuses. Her trauma is grounded in invasion of privacy and her response is entirely understandable even as you’re yelling ‘LISTEN TO THE IRISH CHARACTER ACTRESS! SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH!’ in your head.
Contents
Rubber Match
Unwelcome
Interstitials: Images That Could Be Album Covers
Playout: In The Air Tonight (cover) by The Protomen