Smother: This is what an Agatha Christie-themed Glenroe looks like TV review: Restrained Dervla Kirwan steals the show from melodramatic Seána Kerslake
Mon, Mar 8, 2021, 00:25 Ed Power
Dervla Kirwan plays Val Ahern, who has had enough of her slimy, philandering husband Denis. But did she kill him?
Smother, RTÉ’s new psychological thriller written by former Mr Selfridge show-runner Kate O’Riordan, is a long way from perfect. There are too many characters, several of whom feel blandly interchangeable (have a bow stubbled middle-aged blokes #1 2, 3).
The plot unspools like fresh-from-the-microwave Midsomer Murders. And it doesn’t take advantage of the Co Clare setting by evoking, as shows such has Broadchurch do, a specific sense of place. In Ireland there is no psychosphere.
Back in the 1990s, TV viewers fell in love with Dervla Kirwan when her feisty character Assumpta Fitzgerald and her doomed relationship with Father Peter Clifford in Ballykissangel became a Sunday evening mainstay - not just in Ireland but in the UK.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, Dubliner Dervla is again set to take centre stage for must-see Sunday night TV in riveting new RTÉ drama Smother. She stars as domineering Val Ahern, a mother who is estranged from her millionaire husband Denis.
The six-part series is set among beautiful scenery in Co Clare and most of the action in tonight s dramatic opening episode revolves around Val s 50th birthday party in the family s jaw-dropping coastal mansion.
Back in the 1990s, TV viewers fell in love with Dervla Kirwan when her feisty character Assumpta Fitzgerald and her doomed relationship with Father Peter Clifford in Ballykissangel became a Sunday evening mainstay - not just in Ireland but in the UK.
Drama shot in North Clare to air from Sunday night
March 6, 2021
Smother, which will air on RTÉ One next Sunday night.
Shot on location in Lahinch, Liscannor, Spanish Point, Fanore, Ennistymon and Lisdoonvarna, the six-part drama is described as a “domestic noir thriller,” and is a co-production with BBC.
It was filmed last year in adherence with pandemic guidelines. The high-end production featured a number of locals as crew members and extras.
Writer Kate O’Riordan, who worked on the hit series
Mr Selfridge, created the family thriller which sees her tight-knit family of characters gradually unearth deeply buried secrets and live with their unintended consequences.
Updated / Thursday, 4 Mar 2021
21:12
Dervla Kirwan has told the
Ray D Arcy Show on RTÉ Radio 1 that her new RTÉ One series
Smother is Celtic noir , and that her character Val has a unique way of manipulating the truth .
The Kate O Riordan-penned series begins on RTÉ One on Sunday night, taking viewers into the highly dysfunctional Ahern family following the death of Val s psychological terrorist husband, Denis (Stewart Graham). The Ahern daughters are played by Gemma-Leah Devereux, Seána Kerslake and Niamh Walsh.
?? New Irish Drama Smother starring Dervla Kirwan and Seána Kerslake and set in a small town in #Clare , starts this Sunday at 9.30pm on @RTEOne@RTEplayer#Smotherpic.twitter.com/2yLkEpGG3m