TEREZA CERVENOVATELEVISION
How not to get divorced
The Split BBC1, Mon
Pilgrimage: The Road to
the Scottish Isles BBC2, Fri
Art That Made Us BBC2, Thu
Ellie Simmonds: A World
Without Dwarfism?
BBC1, Tue
Soapy, glamorous, full of
erotic entanglements,
property porn and legal
intrigues: The Split promises
high-end comfort viewing, a
kind of old-school potboiler.
In practice, however, Abi
Morgan’s drama about a
family of dysfunctional
divorce lawyers is anything
but relaxing, its tension
coming from watching so
many people so deeply
committed to making the
worst possible decisions at
any given moment. Commit
adultery with a colleague?
Sleep with a client? Register
with an extramarital dating
site? These characters have
never met a marriage-
wrecking, career-ending
ethical dilemma they didn’t
fancy, and over two series it
has become exhausting.
The third and final series
begins with Hannah Stern
(Nicola Walker) eyeing up
the papers that will end her
marriage to her barrister
husband, Nathan (Stephen
Mangan), after her infidelity.
The couple were supposedly
having a “good divorce”, but
that illusion collapsed when
Nathan ambushed Hannah
with his new girlfriend, Kate
(Lara Pulver), at a dinner
with friends. The Split is
good at sour, angry emotions,
and here was a moment of
instant animal loathing,
the sanctimonious child
psychologist Kate referring to
children as “little people”,
Hannah stabbing murderously
at her tofu. Few shows better
capture the dynamic of
women judging women: the
tight smile, the faux-polite
“with respect”.
Walker might have the
most curious relationship
with syntax of any actor this
side of Andrew Scott, but she
was excellent here, Hannah’s
emotions written all over her
face before she quickly tries
to rub them out. If she drinks
a glass of water, or applies
mascara, she does it with
complete conviction. Her
concentration is the perfect
match for Mangan, whose
comic ease allows him to
play Nathan as weak,
well-meaning, sliding into
cowardice at the edges,
swerving anything
challenging with a bad joke
and a wavering smile. “I lovepromised a higher-minded
search for answers as seven
celebrities travelled from
Donegal to Iona, following
the path of the missionary
St Columba. A Gogglebox star
and the other bloke off The
Apprentice seemed unlikely
vessels for spiritual revelation,
but this was one reality show
where contestants could
justifiably talk about their
“journey” without deserving
divine retribution.
Drawn from different
faiths and backgrounds, this
amiable batch of pilgrims
included the cricketer Monty
Panesar, who discussed the
role Sikhism played in helping
to manage his depression;
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen,
who cheerily came out as
pagan (“woodland
sprites and weird
stuff ”) and the
Emmerdale actress
Louisa Clein, whose
mother, a Jewish
Holocaust survivor,
poignantly sent herchildren to a Church of
England school so they
wouldn’t stand out.
Most surprising, though,
was former Queen of the
Jungle Scarlett Moffatt,
whose Christianity became
increasingly apparent as the
journey progressed. At one
point she was reduced to tears
by the irreverent “banter”, a
reminder that religion can be
a more awkward topic than
money or sex.
Even when their sat-nav was
failing, at least the pilgrims
never found themselves
wandering that part of the
11th-century Anglo-Saxon
Mappa Mundi denoted by
“here lions abound”. That was
just one highlight of Art That
Made Us, an eight-part series
exploring British history and
identity through key artworks.
Antony Gormley discussed
the earthenware Anglo-Saxon
sculpture Spong Man, his
face-clutching posture falling
between Munchian scream
and bored teenager; Richard
Coles marvelled at the
Lindisfarne Gospels, while
Michael Sheen performed
the 7th-century Welsh poem
Y Gododdin as if he were doing
an open-mike in a tough
comedy club. It wasn’t the
most coherent film, but it
felt like a glorious night at
the museum.
Also asking searching
questions about what it
means to be human was
Ellie Simmonds: A World
Without Dwarfism?. The
five-time Paralympic gold
medallist explored the
implications of vosoritide,
a drug that can encourage
growth in children with
achondroplasia, her form of
dwarfism. The swimmer’s
unease with the idea that she
was something to be “cured”
was palpable. For Simmonds,
dwarfism meant community,
identity, the reason for her
stellar achievements; now
“the average-height world is
trying to change people like
me rather than accepting us
for who we are.” This film
illuminated a shifting moral
and medical map, one
where ethical lions abound.
Simmonds, though, was up
for the fight, taking the
viewer with her all the way. cyou,” Kate said. “Thank you,”
he replied.
Such intricate emotional
shading was, however,
balanced out by the broad
strokes of the story. When
adorable nerd James (Rudi
Dharmalingam) argued with
Hannah’s sister, Rose (Fiona
Button), over their adoption
plans then cycled away
shouting, “I don’t want to
miss life!”, it signposted
tragedy as clearly as the
crime-drama cop cheerily
discussing his retirement
plans. Yet through its plotline
pile-ups (Lindsay Duncan’s
fabulous S&M countess was,
amazingly, a mere secondary
thread), The Split asked big
questions about love and
marriage and how they
often end in disaster.
If The Split
explored human
nature at its
messiest,
Pilgrimage: The
Road to the
Scottish IslesThe Split is
high-end comfort
viewing — where
everyone makes
bad decisions
On a break Nicola Walker in
divorce drama The SplitVICTORIA
SEGAL
THE
CRITICS14 10 April 2022