IF you enjoyed Happy Valley, you’ll feel on familiar ground with Redemption (ITV). It revolves around DI Colette Cunningham, who works as a cop in Liverpool. One day, she gets a call that tells her that her estranged daughter Kate is dead. In Dublin.
DI Colette heads over on the ferry and finds she has two teenage grandchildren. They don’t know that their mother has taken her own life, so it falls to DI Colette to break the news, arrange the funeral and generally support her teenage Irish grandchildren.
There are frequent reminders that this is 2023 Ireland, not the Land of Leprechauns. The Garda leading the investigation into Kate’s suicide is black; when Colette gets co-opted into the Gardaí in Dublin for six months, her police buddy is a young woman of Asian extraction who likes women more than men. DI Colette’s granddaughter Cara wants to bring her boyfriend to the funeral, and her grandson Liam wants to bring his boyfriend. But this is still Ireland of clichéd yesteryear: at the funeral service, DI Colette reads out a poem which her daughter knew and loved as a child: ‘Down by the Sally Gardens’.
So is it worth watching? Redemption follows the model of Happy Valley, but so far it doesn’t have the depth and menace of Happy Valley. DI Colette must cope with her daughter Kate’s suicide just as Sergeant Catherine had to cope with her daughter Becky’s suicide. So far her relations with her grandchildren don’t really engage the viewer. Paula Malcolmson plays the part of DI Colette, looking suitably bleak as a woman who’s lost her daughter, but compared to Sergeant Catherine she’s a lightweight
However, however. This is the first episode, which is always tricky, since the makers of the series have to introduce and start running plot, character and setting all at the same time. And while we all feel good about it being filmed in Dublin, that city has a job on its hands to equal or surpass the brooding rawness of West Yorkshire. And while Sergeant Catherine was forever catching her breath after pursuing a minor villain, DI Colette so far is a stander and a sitter, not a chaser.
So possible promise rather than bull’s-eye so far. One big advantage Redemption does have – it airs at the same time as RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, so you’ll have an excuse for not watching Ryan Tubridy.
