Martin Compston and Meera Syal are among the names in this tale of divorcees hitting back at their exes. It’s a thriller, comedy and psychodrama all at once – but could maybe do with being more simple
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ometimes three-in-one type things are good. Phone chargers with lots of leads for all your devices that have stupidly different ports. Those woolly hats that cover your neck and lower face, so you look daft but are impregnable to winter cold. The Nars blusher stick that is also a lipstick and eyeshadow.
When it comes to dramas, however, it’s best to stick to one field of endeavour. The Revenge Club is a gallimaufry of tones, styles and performances. Watching it is like looking through a kaleidoscope that someone twists for you every few minutes; it’s fun but quite disorienting after a while.
The club of the title begins as a divorce therapy group, comprising six pained souls. First among grieving equals is Emily (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), a happy and successful thirtysomething until she found her husband in bed with her best friend. The treacherous pair now have a baby, live in Emily’s beloved former home and bought her business for peanuts when she became unable to work in the wake of the disaster. We meet Emily in a now-standard flash-forward scene being interviewed by the police because “people are dead”. Dum-dum-dah! “It all started with the group,” she says, and – Big Little Lies style – every episode begins with a new member being interviewed and further interrogation scenes are interwoven with the main action, dropping crumbs of information as they go. It’s enough to keep you hooked even after you realise too many of the characters are ciphers, the main action is preposterous but that the brutal misery of divorce is somehow perfectly evoked and underlies every moment. It makes you want to cry even as you laugh in disbelief at the shenanigans unfolding.
