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Hollington Drive review – Anna Maxwell Martin radiates with rage in suburban hell

This thriller about the nightmarish disappearance of a child in suburbia gets off to a suitably gripping start – and Maxwell Martin is a perfect glum mum

I am noticing a small but definite improvement in one thing (and one thing only – have you seen the world lately?). That is the depiction in TV drama of female – usually marital, for reasons we’ll gloss over here but send me an SAE if you want my full monograph – rage. It’s getting better and better. First, in terms of being present at all, and second in terms of precision. Examples include Annie Murphy as Allison in Kevin Can F*ck Himself, a show that deliberately subverts the sitcom wife role and allows Murphy to give a tremendous portrait of a woman on the edge. The pandemic-set two-hander Together, starring Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy, gave absolutely equal weight and specificity to the unravelling couple’s furious miseries. And the recent series of I Am … gave us, in Suranne Jones’s Victoria and Lesley Manville’s Maria, pitch-perfect models of the choking resentments that fester over a lifetime of trying to live within particularly female constraints.

Now we have Anna Maxwell Martin quietly seething and holding back oceans as Theresa, partner of Fraser (Rhashan Stone), mother of one and resident of Hollington Drive. It is the kind of leafy, affluent enclave that promises nothing can really go wrong within its moneyed embrace. Or, as Fraser’s brother and their current house guest Eddie (Ken Nwosu) sees it, “the perfect place for paedophiles. Plenty of kids. Quiet. Insular”. Who’s to say?

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3CUjflx
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