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The Woman In The Wall stars Ruth Wilson (See How They Run) as Lorna Brady, who we first see walking along the road barefoot, after waking up in the middle of said road. The dim look of the landscape, plus the weird whispering of Clare Harner’s poem, Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, made it seem all arty-farty, and that this was something set in a time many centuries ago…
But it doesn’t take long before the credit pops up, “Kilkinure, Western Ireland, 2015”.
I’ve posted this review after the episode has aired, so I will mention some elements of it, but we get a disparate set of events, such as Lorna getting home, apologising to the portrait of Jesus on her wall, for having stabbed him in the eye with a big knife, then removing it leading to a water leak which she feels she can somehow fix, herself, and it’s there and then that she finds a dead woman in a room behind her wall, hence the title… However, you’d soon smell the stench, so why wouldn’t you have dealt with it sooner?
Along the way, she gets a strange message: “I know what happened to your child”, and a number for her to call to discuss it, there are cops sorting out a car which has gone through a wall and ended up in a field, a case of a priest having been murdered, Lorna’s suspected to have broken into the convent grounds and desecrated the shrine to the Virgin Mary with an axe, and there’s some obligatory weird stuff in there which makes no sense.
What is real and what is Memorex?
Ultimately, this drama refers to Justice for Magdalenes Research, before which I was unaware, and it looks at the women who had their babies were taken away from them. However, while there must be a story to write about that – if it hasn’t been done already – when it comes to The Woman In The Wall, this feels a bit like Wolf: write any old stupid shit and throw it up on the screen, her only potential get-out being that she sleepwalks sometimes, so doesn’t even remember what she’s done.
I often tried to forget what I was watching, especially when Daryl McCormack (Bad Sisters) was onscreen as cop Colman Akande, since the actor has as much personality as a wet dishrag.
However, it’s interesting that the end credits have the programme carry on, but with the sound now muffled, as if you’re the dead woman still hearing her radio, as she bangs nails into the wall. That was a bit chilling…
The Woman in the Wall continues tomorrow night on BBC1 at 9pm, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. After each episode, you can watch them on BBC iPlayer.
Series Directors: Solene Guichard, Rachna Suri, Harry Wootliff
Producer: Susan Breen
Creator/Writer: Joe Murtagh
Cast:
Lorna Brady: Ruth Wilson
Detective Colman Akande: Daryl McCormack
Sgt. Aidan Massey: Simon Delaney
Niamh: Philippa Dunne
Michael Kearney: Mark Huberman
Amy Kane: Hilda Fay
Young Lorna: Abby Fitz
Anna: Lynn Rafferty
Lola Akande: Chizzy Akudolu
Margaret Brady: Fiona Browne
SUPT Louise Byrne: Eimear Morrissey
Tayo Akande: Charles Abomeli
Garda: Eoin Gleeson
Luke Drennan: Liam Heslin
Young Fr Percy: Michael O’Kelly
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.