To share from the Telegraph today as it’s behind a paywall and it was their tv guide suggestion that inspired me to suggest this new drama:
“ TELEVISION REVIEWS
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Fantastic drama boasts TV performance of the year
Anita Singh
Picture of Anita Singh
The best TV performance of the year is by an actor most British viewers won’t recognise, in a New Zealand production that most won’t see (few people flock to Channel 4 for a drama fix these days). The actor is Robyn Malcolm in After the Party; if Kate Winslet or Sarah Lancashire played this role even half as well, they’d have the Baftas all sewn up.
I was reluctant to watch it because it was billed as a story about sexual abuse allegations, which is nobody’s idea of a good time. But I’m so glad I did, and it’s in no way as grim as that description suggests.
Malcolm plays Penny, a science teacher and grandmother who is married to the convivial Phil (Peter Mullan). She throws a house party for his birthday. It’s a happy, boozy affair, although some teenagers pilfer a bottle of alcohol and one boy gets so drunk that he has to be put to bed. Then Penny realises she hasn’t seen Phil for a while, goes upstairs to look for him, and finds him lying on the bed with the drunken and semi-naked teen.
Horrified, she hauls Phil downstairs and accuses him of child abuse. Penny is the type to come straight out and say what she thinks, unafraid of the repercussions. She’s earthy, unembarrassable and gloriously no-nonsense. The first episode opens with her leading an impromptu sex education lesson after finding one of her pupils watching porn on their phone, and doing it so well that you’ll wish there was a Penny in every school.
But here’s the issue: Penny may be an unreliable witness. The teenage boy denies that anything untoward happened. Phil denies it too, saying he was simply looking after the kid and making sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit. And as viewers, we’re not sure either: a glimpse of what Penny saw in the bedroom is ambiguous. Could she have made a terrible mistake?
These scenes are told in flashback. In the present day, several years later, Penny is getting on with her life when she learns that Phil – having returned to his native Scotland to escape the scandal, although no charges were ever brought – has just arrived back in town to take up a new job. Not only that, but plenty of people believe Penny got it wrong, including the couple’s daughter.
The setting, a very windy Wellington, feels fresh to British eyes. The plot vaguely follows the beats of a thriller over its six episodes, as Penny tries to prove that Phil was guilty and remains a danger. Her single-mindedness becomes frustrating and leads her to make some bad judgement calls. Penny feels messy and real, and Malcolm’s phenomenal performance will keep you hooked.”
