MARRIAGE, BBC iPlayer
It’s the clever TV show everyone’s talking about.
We’re happy to report that the Platinum team is obsessed with this BBC1 show (we binged the whole thing over two nights in case you’re wondering). You know you’re in for a treat when you see that the two leads are powerhouse actors Sean Bean and Nicola Walker. Add in the fact that it’s written by BAFTA award-winning writer Stefan Golaszewski (who telly nerds will know as the man who wrote family sitcom Mum) and chances are you’re onto a winner. Marriage doesn’t disappoint.
Why we love it
Marriage,14-08-2022,Ian (SEAN BEAN), Emma (NICOLA WALKER),The Forge,Rory Mulvey
After 30 years of marriage, Ian (Sean Bean) and Emma (Nicola Walker) aren’t averse to a good old bicker, whether it’s over a baked potato in an airport lounge or arguing about which chicken to buy in the frozen food aisle. A quietly devastating study in the mundanities and minutiae of long-term relationships, this show is superb at portraying real life as opposed to TV life.
The premise is actually very simple. “It’s a show about a couple and how they get through things together,” says Golaszewski. “I guess I’m trying to write about what it is actually like to be a person instead of what it is like on television or in fiction. People find things difficult and they don’t really know what they feel. They think they feel one thing but often feel something else. We don’t experience life as big thunderstorms, it’s more like constant drizzle, and that’s what the show explores.”
It’s as much about what’s left unsaid as what’s actually said. The main characters’ sentences trail off, they don’t listen to each other… it would be tragic if it weren’t so quietly hilarious and so very true to life.
It’s not the usual TV fodder we’re used to. And is all the better for it.
