Four girls and one English boy at a Catholic girls’ school in Derry in the 1990s. Army checkpoints on the way to class, and the girls are mostly worried about a school trip.
The joke the show is built on
That teenagers are self-absorbed regardless of circumstance. The political situation is constant background — soldiers, bomb scares, news bulletins — and the characters find it mainly inconvenient, because they have more pressing concerns like a rumour or a boy.
That gap is the engine, and it is both very funny and, occasionally, devastating.
The timing
Genuinely fast. The dialogue is rapid, heavily accented, and the show does not slow down for anyone. Subtitles are a reasonable choice for the first episode.
Sister Michael is one of the great comic creations of the last decade — a nun with no interest whatsoever in the spiritual welfare of her students.
The ending
The final episode moves the story to the Good Friday Agreement referendum and shifts register completely in its last ten minutes. It earns it, because the show has spent three seasons refusing to be about the politics.
Content note
Comedy throughout, but the setting is what it is. One episode deals with a death and the last one is openly political.
Commitment
Three short seasons, about seven hours total. Complete, and it ends well.
Newsletter
Growing up, one season at a time
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