Lola Petticrew has become a one-actor pioneer of a new genre of 1970s Troubles noir. Twelve months ago, Petticrew brought a rock’n roll role élan to the part of a femme fatale Provo bomber in Disney’s Say Nothing. Now the Belfast-born rising star plays a Catholic teacher who becomes entangled in a forbidden romance with a suave Protestant barrister in the enjoyably stylish adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s 2022 novel, Trespasses (Channel 4, 9pm).
The romance is not forbidden because of religion: Cushla (Petticrew) is a progressive teacher who sees the Irish language as a unifying force, while the upper-middle-class barrister, Michael Agnew (Tom Cullen), is far too sophisticated for anything as coarse as sectarianism. He is, however, married – meaning his clandestine romps with Cushla must take place in his Belfast bolt-hole or during a dirty weekend South of the Border.
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Quite how they manage to cavort so enthusiastically and flagrantly without anyone cottoning on is a mystery. But if the central romance feels more like a romcom cast-off than a Troubles drama, Trespasses elsewhere goes above and beyond in evoking the grim reality of the North in the 1970s. Much like Say Nothing, the show’s biggest strength lies with its production values. Cushla’s family pub in a small town close to Belfast is rendered in 50 shades of dingy brown, while her brother Eamonn’s moustache feels so of its time that they could bung it in a museum.
The four-part series also captures the hopelessness of the era. When the father in a “mixed marriage” is beaten nearly to death by his fellow Protestants, nobody seems much bothered. The feeling on both sides is that he had it coming to him by being naive enough to marry a Catholic.
For all its authenticity, Trespasses isn’t perfect, however. Gillian Anderson overacts as Cushla’s alcoholic mother – stealing every scene she is in, even when she is clearly not supposed to be the centre of attention. There are also some moments of unintentional hilarity. For instance, when Cushla and Michael nip off to Dublin – a city of a thousand jazz clubs apparently – they laugh and hold hands in a montage that seems to have been cribbed from the sequence in the original Naked Gun movie where Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley gambol on a beach.
But despite those flaws and some “can’t be unseen” love scenes that feel like Normal People meets the Joy of Sex, Trespasses is hugely watchable – to the point where it is far more fun than a Troubles drama should be. Just as Cushla and Michael have a grubby, hidden life together, so this high-end adaptation of an acclaimed novel had a dirty little secret of its own. In its heart of hearts, it has all the qualities of a well-made soap opera. The dark days of the Troubles are brilliantly illuminate. But the true power of the story lies in its steamy evocation of the travails of forbidden lovers who have trapped each other in a self-destructive spiral.
