Top Boy: The most satisfying send-off since Succession
The sublime East London crime drama Top Boy stayed thrilling to its bitter end. Just don’t get attached to any characters.
Every Family Has a Secret
SBS on Demand
This show is basically Who Do You Think You Are? Except, instead of actor Edward Norton finding Pocahontas in his family tree, it’s Noni Hazlehurst breaking the news to ordinary people that their parents were not the sweet, silent types they thought they were; rather, they were horrible little Nazis. In many respects, it’s a better show — digging through the family histories of civilians is far more compelling than watching the bloke who played Harry Potter pretend to care that somewhere down his familial line there were jewellers. The newest season, to premiere on SBS on October 19, is excellent. The locations are lush, the historians eccentric, and the secrets are positively scandalous. It’s sure to pique the interest of anyone who has ever considered ordering a DNA test from 23andMe.
One Night
Paramount+
Noni Hazlehurst has been keeping busy; she does a bang-up job of a Scottish accent in the new Paramount+ mystery drama One Night, where she stars opposite a cracking cast of Yael Stone (whom she shared the stage with in STC’s production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane), Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who), and Nicole da Silva (Wentworth). The story unfolds as a classic small-town tale filled with big secrets, revolving around three women: da Silva’s Mon; Whittaker’s Tess; and Stone’s Hat, whose lives were irrevocably bound together after a traumatic night at the pub when they were teenagers. Wounds resurface when Mon publishes her debut novel based on that tragedy the women have guarded as a secret for two decades. This is a passable drama buoyed by good performances, but squandered by how corny and familiar it feels. The writing is clunky, especially problematic when the central drama is narrated using quotes from a supposed best-selling book. The cinematography is boring — let’s cool it on the drone shots of scenic coastal rock faces for a while. It all feels like a middling rehash of Big Little Lies, as if we haven’t had our fill of that already.
Feud
Disney+
Sharpen your talons; the second, long-delayed season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series Feud will be released this summer. In the ring, we have novelist/journalist/outrageous gossip Truman Capote against his “swans,” aka the socialites he endeared himself to in the 50s and 60s, only to backstab when he sold out their secrets in the Esquire story “La Côte Basque, 1965.” Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) directs, and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Robin Baitz has penned the script, which is based on Laurence Leamer’s bestseller Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era. Capote vs. The Swans is still a while away, giving you ample time to catch up on the first, irresistible season which focuses on the toxic relationship between Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) on and off the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It’s Murphy at his best.
Top Boy
Netflix
This column has banged on about Top Boy before, but to paraphrase Quentin Crisp: one must repeat oneself loudly and often — especially when the stakes are near-perfect TV. After five, sinewy seasons on the Summerhouse estate, Ronan Bennett’s East London crime drama has taken its bow. In its final outing, drug kingpins and former ride-or-dies Sully (Kane “Kano” Robinson) and Dushane (Ashley Walters) are still fighting for gangland dominance, but now, the Oscar-nominated Irish actor Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin) has joined the fold as a genuinely terrifying gangster. It’s a sublime ending to a consistently thrilling show. A word of advice for anyone yet to plunge in: do not form an emotional attachment to any of the characters; Top Boy is merciless, and there’s a good chance they’ll end up with a bullet in their head. Also, for all those streaming on Netflix—the first two seasons are confusingly titled Top Boy: Summerhouse, start there, then make your way to Top Boy.
Chewing Gum
Netflix
Here’s another gem set in a London council estate. Before the peerless and utterly devastating I May Destroy You, Michaela Coel created Chewing Gum, a chaotic comedy adapted from a one-woman play she wrote while in acting school. Coel embodies Tracey Gordon, a horny and hyperactive 20-something who is desperate to shed her virginity. The catch is that her boyfriend is a devoted Christian. He is also gay. There are other gloriously quirky characters milling about the Tower Hamlets: Tracey’s prim and proper sister and mother, staunch Pentecostals; and her liberated best mate Candice, who is getting it in spades. The writing is razor-sharp, and the humour unrepentantly filthy, but it is Coel’s absolute commitment to the bit that elevates this comedy above the rest. Much has been rightly lauded about her talents as a writer, director, and actor. Still, it’s her uncanny gift for physical comedy and her willingness to wholeheartedly embody the clown that leaves a mark.
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