It’s impossible to understate the impact of Derry Girls. An irreverent poke at life in 1990s Ireland, seen through the eyes of a bunch of don’t-give-a-shit teens, it’s easily the best sitcom to emerge from the country since Father Ted. So no surprise that creator Lisa McGee finds herself bathed in its shadow. So much so, she offers a cheeky meta-nod to it midway through her new Netflix-backed eight-parter, How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, with a shot of the real-life, wall-spanning Derry Girls mural – one that’s almost as famous as the show itself.
In truth, though, it’s hard to imagine the characters in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast awarded a similar artistic rendering in the Northern Irish city, or anywhere else. A convoluted, blackly comic murder-mystery, it’s often quirky for quirky’s sake. It starts when three thirty-something women get a call that nobody would ever want to receive – their old schoolfriend Greta (Natasha O’Keeffe), who they haven’t seen in 20 years, is dead. It’s a tragic passing that sends them back to the tiny Donegal village of Knockdara.
The problem is, it’s hard to believe these bickering ‘besties’ would ever want to stay in touch. Robyn (Sinéad Keenan) is a permanently harassed, sharp-tongued mother-of-three. Dara (Industry’s Caoilfhionn Dunne) is the kooky one, her pudding-bowl haircut hidden under her collection of coloured beanie hats. And then there’s Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), the showrunner for hit BAFTA-winning procedural ‘Murder Code’ who seems adrift even from her partner (The Ballad Of Wallis Island’s Tom Basden) when she, like the others, learns that Greta has fallen down the stairs to her death.
A trip to Greta’s family home reveals there’s more to this story than meets the eye when the hapless trio realise that a past tragedy bonding them as tightly as their matching tattoos has risen from the grave. With a plot yo-yo’ing back and forth in time, all cut to an early aughts soundtrack as the characters’ younger selves intrude upon their psyches, so begins an increasingly exasperating drama that never quite knows what it wants to be. The White Lotus, Bad Sisters and, of course, Derry Girls all feel like templates reworked (or rehashed) here.
Depicting Ireland with heightened visuals that make it seem like the American Midwest of a Stephen King horror, McGee deserves credit for creating a show that could serve Netflix’s global reach, far removed from Irish social realism. But there’s a lot that feels derivative, and a lot that’s tonally enamoured with the ultra-violence of Quentin Tarantino. Like the nurse, reading a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, who appears every bit as deadly as Daryl Hannah’s whistling assassin in Kill Bill.
True, there are some snappy lines (“you own a motel and your name is Norman?”) and a support cast made up of Ireland’s best and brightest, including Father Ted’s Ardal O’Hanlon, Gangs Of London’s Michelle Fairley, The Commitments’ Bronagh Gallagher and Saipan scene-stealer Jamie Beamish. Yet for all its favourable credentials, the story isn’t mysterious or mischievous enough. Nor are the characters so likeable you’ll be wanting to spend whole episodes with them, let alone a potential second season. You’ll be second-screening before you know it.
‘How To Get To Heaven From Belfast’ is available now on Netflix