Latest aboard what is starting to resemble a bandwagon is Crá ( TG4 , Monday), a noir-ish thriller set in the Donegal badlands and co-produced by TG4 and BBC Northern Ireland. Tellingly, the dead hand of RTÉ is nowhere near it. Consequently, it suffers from neither the lack of ambition nor the cack-handed storytelling that is too often a feature of drama creaking out of Montrose.
Crá – which, according to TG4, means “anguish” or “torment” – takes a while to get going, and it is clear that for some of the cast Irish is not a first (or possibly a second) language. But Donegal – Ireland’s very own Middle Earth in the rain – is the perfect backdrop for a thriller about a garda whose life is turned upside-down when a body found in a bog turns out to be that of his own mother, a society beauty and blow-in from Germany who vanished 15 years previously. [ Kneecap at Vicar Street: A thrilling gig testament to their talents as rappers, ravers and conjurors of chaos Opens in new window ] The personal connection means Garda Conall Ó Súilleabháin (a moody Dónall Ó Héalai – who has a clean sweep of Irish language roles following the films Arracht and Foscadh) is officially prohibited from looking into the case.
Instead, he teams up with annoying podcaster Ciara-Kate (Hannah Brady), who is making an audio drama about the case that will hopefully be titled Only Murders in the Parish. Young Offenders’s Alex Murphy plays Conall’s geeky underling. Doneg.
