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Marriage centres around a couple who, as you’d imagine, have been married for a long time, namely Ian (Sean Bean – Time) and Emma (Nicola Walker from The Last Train), even down to bickering over the airport’s burger meal.
Firstly, she’s critical of the fact she has to pay for individual ketchup sachets, and how you can never open them, either. Meanwhile, he’s annoyed he can’t get a potato because they only sell chips, and even more so, because he wanted her to actually ask if they did them, and she didn’t because it was clear they only did chips… but why couldn’t she just ask if they could do one? Oh, let it go!
In fact, similarly, when my Dad was alive, we’d often go for a carvery, and out of all the food and condiments they had, they didn’t have ketchup! Unless you wanted to pay for a tiny little pot! Hence, I ended up just taking my own!
Marriage also takes in the mundanities of fruit going off in the fridge while you’ew away, watching TV with friends coming over, and visiting Emma’s father, played by the great James Bolam, who lives with her brother, Paul. And later, Ian and Emma have a dinner at home with their daughter, Jess, bringing her boyfriend round to meet them for the first time.
Yes, the action never starts in this series, right down to how Ian likes the freedom of effectively being retired – since he was made redundant, but then finds himself at a loose end.
So, Marriage is a drama where nothing of consequence happens on purpose. You feel like it’s building up to something, but that never comes. At least not in the first episode I saw. It’s a four-episode series, but after one, I’m out.
As an aside, I’m not sure if there’s any incidental music in this, but there was none in the preview I saw. For example, when she visits her Dad and he asked her to turn the TV up, we still can’t hear anything, so that must’ve been added in later.
Also, the theme music – Caroline Shaw‘s Partita for 8 Voices: No.1, Allemande – is one of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard.
Marriage begins on BBC1 on Sunday at 9pm. It’s available to pre-order on DVD.
After each episode is broadcast, they will be on the BBC iPlayer.
Director: Stefan Golaszewski
Producer: Lyndsay Robinson
Writer: Stefan Golaszewski
Music: Caroline Shaw – Partita for 8 Voices: No.1, Allemande
Ian: Sean Bean
Emma: Nicola Walker
Jessica: Chantelle Alle
Jamie: Henry Lloyd-Hughes
Adam: Jack Holden
Gerry: James Bolam
Carol: Phillipa Carson
Paul: Kemal Sylvester
Claire: Kath Hughes
Mike: Makir Ahmed
Emily: Shona McHugh
Maxine: Ella Augustin
Kieran: Hector Hewer
Amos: Tobi King Bakare
Rachel: Lauren Douglin
Gym men: Leroy Bonsu, Kareen Alexander, Josh Hanley
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.