Fans of Daisy May Cooper have come to love her “distinct brand of confident fecklessness” from her stellar turns in shows such as This Country and Am I Being Unreasonable?, said Ben Dowell in The Times. “Now, she has gone a step further”, with this “grimy and very British show”, which (perhaps surprisingly) comes from the US broadcaster HBO but is being shown on BBC One.
Cooper plays Costello, “a single mum and occasional sex worker” whom we meet being evicted from her London flat. She is locked in a love/hate friendship with Selby (Jack Farthing), a “louche, highly privileged homosexual, newly released from prison”, who acts as a father figure to Costello’s daughter, Iris (Fleur Tashjian). There are elements of the series that don’t ring true – Iris is suspiciously “well adjusted” – but Costello is a brilliant creation, and scriptwriter Cash Carraway “vividly” captures “down-at-heel London”.
Rain Dogs “won’t be for everyone”, but I loved it, said Deborah Ross in The Mail on Sunday. “Billed as a comedy-drama, it is funny but also rude, dark, bruising” and “harrowing”. It’s Cooper’s “most dramatic role to date”, and she proves she is more than up to it: “even when Costello is at her worst, Cooper is capable of displaying the vulnerability underneath”. Farthing, too, is a “revelation”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The series “refuses to play out as an anguished, one-dimensional treatise on class and poverty for audiences to sigh and weep over”, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. Cooper is superb, and it adds up to a “bold, wild-hearted ride.”
Where to watch: BBC iPlayer
-
The ‘Kavanaugh stop’Feature Activists say a Supreme Court ruling has given federal agents a green light to racially profile Latinos
-
Has 21st-century culture become too bland?Under The Radar New book argues that the algorithm has killed creative originality
-
Affordability: Does Trump have an answer?Feature Trump ‘refuses to admit there is a problem’
-
Film reviews: ‘Jay Kelly’ and ‘Sentimental Value’Feature A movie star looks back on his flawed life and another difficult dad seeks to make amends
-
6 homes on the Gulf CoastFeature Featuring an elegant townhouse in New Orleans’ French Quarter and contemporary coastal retreat in Texas
-
The vast horizons of the Puna de AtacamaThe Week Recommends The ‘dramatic and surreal’ landscape features volcanoes, fumaroles and salt flats
-
The John Lewis ad: touching, or just weird?Talking Point This year’s festive offering is full of 1990s nostalgia – but are hedonistic raves really the spirit of Christmas?
-
Train Dreams pulses with ‘awards season gravitas’The Week Recommends Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton star in this meditative period piece about a working man in a vanished America
-
Middleland: Rory Stewart’s essay collection is a ‘triumph’The Week Recommends The Rest is Politics co-host compiles his fortnightly columns written during his time as an MP
-
‘Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America’ and ‘Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary’feature The culture divide in small-town Ohio and how the internet usurped dictionaries
-
6 homes with fall foliagefeature An autumnal orange Craftsman, a renovated Greek Revival church and an estate with an orchard
