The Spanish Princess,
The Bay) and directed by Dathaí Keane (
An Klondike), who keeps a tight grip on the flashback-heavy narrative, it’s mercifully free of the begorrah and bejapers trappings you fear from any Irish drama co-produced by BBC Studios and aimed at as much an international audiences as domestic viewers.
It’s a mash-up of noirish murder mystery and entertainingly overwrought familial nastiness, popul- ated by a large – a little confusingly so at first – cast of characters, some of them despicable types.
Most despicable of all is Denis Ahern (Stuart Graham), a well-heeled shitheel and serial philanderer who’s married to Val (Kirwan).