The Walsh Sisters (BBC 1)
First prize for the most uninspired title this decade goes to The Walsh Sisters.
It sounds like a file in the back of a cabinet drawer in a school secretary’s office, between the Venables Twins and the Yates Family.
All the less excusable, then, that this raucous, chaotic Irish drama is based on Marian Keyes‘s bestselling series of novels, with titles like Rachel’s Holiday, My Brilliant Mistake and The Mystery Of Mercy Close — intriguing enough to make you feel the story has started as soon as you see the cover.
Plunging into a book by Ms Keyes can feel like listening to a woman with a strident voice and no filter at the next table in a restaurant. She’s had a couple of drinks, she’s worked up and slightly angry about something, but she’s also enjoying herself. You know you shouldn’t eavesdrop, but how can you help it?
Director Ian FitzGibbon captures that, with an opening episode that spends half its time in dodgy bars and nightclubs, and the other half at home with the five grown-up Walsh girls jostling, arguing, bantering and teasing.
The two middle sisters, Rachel and Anna (Caroline Menton and Louisa Harland), party hardest and share a cramped flat in Dublin. Both of them are emotional disaster zones but Anna is better at hiding it… and compared to Rachel, Keith Richards would look sober and responsible.
When we first meet them, in a sleazy club, Rachel has given her boyfriend Luke (Jay Duffy) the cold shoulder so she can chat up a stranger in the hope he’ll share his cocaine.
Luke calls an ambulance next morning when he discovers her so hungover, she’s comatose. Her response is to scold him savagely, accusing him of stifling her with selfish, needy affection.
The Walsh Sisters is a raucous, chaotic Irish drama
The TV series is hard to tear yourself away from
Later, she leaves him constant phone messages, lovebombing him and promising to mend her ways. It’s a masterclass in manipulation.
When she drinks and snorts herself into a stupor again the following night, it seems as though she’s going to wake up dead… and her behaviour has been so obnoxious, it’s almost difficult to care.
But as the focus shifts to her sisters, we realise that all of them are struggling to cope. Rachel is failing more obviously than the others, but any of the five could have stumbled into her mess.
Claire (Danielle Galligan) is a resentful single mother. Maggie (Stefanie Preissner, who co-wrote the screenplay) is desperate for a baby. Helen (Mairead Tyers) can’t afford to leave home, where she’s spoilt by weak, doting Daddy Walsh (Aidan Quinn).
Mammy (Carrie Crowley) cannot be satisfied with anything, as though it would be a sin to feel happy for a moment.
Their dramas are so heady and addictive that, when the first part ended on a shocking cliffhanger, I couldn’t help diving into the next. Like eavesdropping when you shouldn’t, it’s hard to tear yourself away.