Unspeakable – The DVDfever Review – Channel 4 drama

Unspeakable centres around Jo (Indira Varma) and her 11-year-old daughter Katie (Nina Sorrentino), who’s becoming increasingly distant, soon followed by Jo receiving a text message from someone unknown, who claims her nurse boyfriend, Danny (Luke Treadaway) has been touching Katie inappropriately.

Cue typical plot construction as she goes looking for clues on her daughter’s tablet, confidentally asks a friend for their opinion, and where elements of the plot are left vague as Jo tries to search for the truth, especially since she gets no clues looking right into Danny’s eyes.

For such a short drama, it was difficult to get a hold on the situation, since we weren’t familiar with the characters and had no background knowledge of what they were like before this. Then again, with a ‘Play for Today‘-type drama, it’s that lack of advance knowledge which helps the ambiguity of the situation, so you have zero chance of figuring out the situation before the revelation comes.

So, this is an important topic, but however, as a drama, it fell rather flat when the outcome was known, and while Ms Varma gave a superb performance throughout, all the other adults felt like they were rather going through the motions.

If I was going to make just one change, it would be with the title, which is very non-descript and the sort of title you expect to see from the latest piece of Hollywood nonsense from Liam Neeson.

Unspeakable can be viewed on All4, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.

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Score: 5/10

Director: David Nath
Producer: Kate Cook
Writer: David Nath
Music: Samuel Sim

Cast:
Jo: Indira Varma
Danny: Luke Treadaway
Katie: Nina Sorrentino
Des: Neil Maskell
Ben: Lucas Bond
Sean: Will Thorp
Sarah: Jordan Whyte
Riz: Anil Desai
Counsellor: Lucinda Holloway
Waitress: Abigail Wisdom
Playground Mum Olivia: Sophie Brooke
Playground Mum Karen: Alison Garner
Playground Mum Claire: Ffion Jolly