Matt Smith has played some demonic characters over the years. Patrick Bateman, Bret Easton Ellis’ serial killing Wall Street yuppie, in a stage musical version of his book American Psycho. Charles Manson, the real-life cult-leading murderer, in the film Charlie Says. And now there’s Bunny Munro, one of the most vile figures to ever grace our television screens.
Set in the early 2000s, the story about a real bad seed comes adapted from Nick Cave’s 2009 novel The Death Of Bunny Munro. The second book from the musical maestro is set around Brighton and the south coast, with this Sky Original six-part adaptation keeping his jet-black humour and askew look at the world unspoiled.
A travelling salesman, specialising in beauty products, Bunny Munro is a sleazy, selfish sex addict who doesn’t give a fig about anyone but himself. In the first episode, his wife Libby (Sarah Greene) commits suicide. Forever seducing women while on the road, Bunny’s behaviour was enough to send his spouse over the edge. “When I see you, I see my little baby hanging,” spits his mother-in-law, played by Lindsay Duncan with real venom.
After telling foul jokes in front of the mourners, he nips to the church’s loo to masturbate vigorously, unable to contain his rapacious sexual appetite. He then mocks his father-in-law for not being able to dance because he’s in a wheelchair. At the wake, he parties hard, takes drugs and has more casual sex, all the while ignoring his sweet-natured boy, Bunny Jr. (Rafael Mathé). He truly is a monster.
If you’re looking for a redemption arc with Bunny turning over a new leaf as he is forced to care for his grieving son, then look elsewhere. The Death Of Bunny Munro isn’t that story. But when the social services come calling, he takes off with Bunny Jr. for an impromptu road trip, promising to show him how to “shake the money tree”. Soon they’re travelling the English riviera, evading the authorities and popping into the odd stripper-friendly pub.
In the backdrop there’s a “Horned Killer” on the loose. This murderer may or may not be after Bunny. And what’s with those menacing cement trucks that seem to be everywhere? With ‘death’ in the title, Cave’s story is haunted by the Grim Reaper, although any attempt to psychologically probe Bunny’s mental state reads better on the page than on screen.
To be fair, Smith doesn’t soften the character, turning on a charm that’s as slippery as an oil spill. In one particularly nasty sequence, he takes revenge by urinating all over someone’s bathroom – toilet seat, loo paper roll, even her toothbrush. It’s a show that revels in squalor, even as Bunny’s cold heart does melt a smidgen towards his boy and, in flashback, his dead wife. He even sings crooner classic ‘Always On My Mind’ to her at karaoke.
Talking of music, the soundtrack’s a cracker. There’s plenty to enjoy including Blondie, Simple Minds, Kylie Minogue, The Fall – and one sublime needle drop for The Cure’s ‘A Forest’. And that’s without mentioning Cave and Warren Ellis’ beautifully melancholic original score.
Whether you’ll click into this stylish show emotionally really depends on how much you tolerate Bunny. Perhaps the most telling performance comes from Mathé as Bunny Jr., a lovely boy who’s been handed a rough deck of cards in life. In a story about the sins of the father, you have to hope he won’t be next.
‘The Death Of Bunny Munro’ is available on Sky and NOW