Louise Kennedy's first and only novel adapted by Ailbhe ('Alva') Keogan and directed by Dawn Shadforth running around three hours.
A Catholic barmaid and teacher, played by Lola Petticrew, befriends a Catholic family with Protestant husband. This being the Troubles of 1975 they're extremely unpopular and he is beaten to shit. The little boy is in her class at school; the older brother loves reading but is disillusioned and probably radicalised. And we sense has a crush on the teacher.
Concurrently she meets and falls for older married barrister Tom Cullen, who's Protestant, thus their affair has to remain doubly secret.
So it's 'Romeo and Juliet', in essence, complete with tragic ending. Its sense of place and conflict in frightening times is well caught.
Gillian Anderson is the alcoholic mother (great accent but sometimes indecipherable) and Martin McCann the not great brother. With Lorcan Cranitch.
Lots of familiar seventies songs, and incidental music by David Holmes.
Lola was in She Said, Weinstein scandal thing, Jimmy Nesbitt's daughter in Bloodlands, another Troubles one called Say Nothing last year. Cullen we know from Downton and more recently The Gold, as well as that Vicky McClure bollocks Insomnia.
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