CHRISTOPHER STEVENS on The Walsh Sisters: These raucous, chaotic sisters are so addictive I couldn’t tear myself away
The Walsh Brothers (BBC 1)
First prize for the dullest play of this decade went to The Walsh Sisters.
It looks like a file found in the back of a cabinet drawer in a school secretary’s office, somewhere between the Venables Twins and the Yates Family.
It’s less excusable that this raucous, chaotic Irish drama is based on Marian Keyes’ best-selling series of novels, including Rachel’s Holiday, My Brilliant Mistake and The Mystery Of Mercy Close, which is so compelling that the moment you see the cover you feel like the story has begun.
Immersing yourself in a book by Ms. Keyes can feel like listening to a high-pitched, unfiltered woman at the next table at a restaurant. He’s had a few drinks, he’s excited and a little angry about something, but he’s also having fun. You know you shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but how can you help?
Director Ian FitzGibbon captures this with an opening episode that finds the five adult Walsh girls jostling, arguing, joking and teasing, spending half their time in dodgy bars and nightclubs and the other half at home.
The two middle sisters, Rachel and Anna (Caroline Menton and Louisa Harland), party the hardest and share a cramped flat in Dublin. They’re both emotional disaster zones, but Anna is better at hiding it… and compared to Rachel, Keith Richards would seem sober and responsible.
When we first meet them at a sleazy club, Rachel is acting cold towards her boyfriend Luke (Jay Duffy) so she can chat up a stranger in the hope he’ll share her cocaine.
When Luke finds out she’s hungover and in a coma the next morning, he calls an ambulance. Her response is to brutally berate him, accusing him of smothering her with selfish, needy affection.
The Walsh Sisters is a raucous, chaotic Irish drama
It’s hard to tear yourself away from the TV series
He then leaves her constant phone messages, love-bombing her and promising to mend his ways. This is a master class in manipulation.
When he drinks and grumbles again the next night, it looks like he’s about to wake up dead… and his behavior is so disgusting it’s almost hard to care.
But when the focus shifts to their sisters, we realize they are all having a hard time coping. Rachel fails more obviously than the others, but any of the five could have been caught up in her confusion.
Claire (Danielle Galligan) is a broken, single mother. Maggie (Stefanie Preissner, who co-wrote the script) longs to have a baby. Helen (Mairead Tyers) cannot afford to leave the home where she has been pampered because of her weakness for her father, Walsh (Aidan Quinn).
Anne (Carrie Crowley) can’t be happy with anything, as if being happy for a moment is a sin.
Their drama is so intoxicating and addictive that when the first episode ended on a shocking cliffhanger, I couldn’t help but dive into the next. It’s hard to detach yourself, like eavesdropping when you shouldn’t.
