The Split then, eh? Phwoar! I missed out series 2 and went straight to series 3 and it’s like posh EastEnders! I haven’t seen such improbable plotting since Luther, when stuff happened only just short of alien abductions to keep you watching. And, I mean, I did keep watching.
Anyway I have loved The Split, with its secret babies and random love triangles and totally uncommented-on pan-sexuality. I can’t believe they bumped off James!!! It made me wonder if actors are secretly really gutted when they get the script and it says “gets hit by bus”. Do they think “Rats,” and call their agent? At least they know it’s going to happen. Whenever I have been fired from a column, (and it has happened a lot), one week you’ve got a job and the next week you don’t. Sometimes they don’t even tell you! Yes, I have been fired by a ghosting. This is why all journalists are very posh, because we need secret money to keep us from starving. Perhaps this is why all actors are Etonians except for Stephen Graham.
Great acting from Nicola Walker and her excellent long bob - lob? - and I love that Nina with her cute dimples and little turny-up nose. Can we discuss the Irish fraudster Tyler? He also pitched up Derry Girls s3 as a supposedly mega-hottie but he’s not hot! He’s all wonky with terrible sloping shoulders and he looks like he’s stolen several other people’s teeth. Whoever does the casting likes this sort of off-centre skinny boy with massive heads and big hair as that ne’er do well who is the father of Cora was the same sort of type - know what I mean?
Another thought: Stephen Mangan and hot Dutch sausage Christie out-gym-bodding each other on Barbican walkways in Royal Blue suits say things like “Hannah is too good for you” but, sorry, why? Nicola Walker is too good for both of them, but Hannah is like this hunched, furious, unrelaxed legal robot. Why is she so amazing exactly? As a character to watch, great. As a love partner? Errr. There was also far too much noisy smoochy kissing with her and the Dutch sausage. STARP IT! GROSS ME OUT!
People I would get rid of: that very irritating teenaged daughter. But the sweet Brazilian kid with his guitar and naif-savant observations on “crasy” English people can stay. He’s like one of those oddball characters Anne Tyler always employs to tell it like it is in otherwise uptight families. Let her marry him! Get rid of her.
Also, I can’t quite believe the kicking that the kid shrink new love interest gets from the scriptwriters. Man, a child psychologist must have really annoyed Abi Morgan somewhere along the line because she hates that bitch.
Have you been watching The Split? What did you think? Tell me in the handy box below.
CHANGE OF SUBJECT! My skin isn’t very nice, it never has been. It’s uneven in colour, dry and patchy and prone to spontaneous ingrown hairs. Being displeased by this when I got into a swimsuit during a February half term beach holiday I decided to do something about it.
Twice a week I have been using La Roche-Posay Micro-Peeling Purifying Gel For Persistent Imperfections. Persistent imperfections! That’s me! I have been scrubbing myself with one of these and then afterwards applying this stuff but also this does the same thing and I find it slightly less sticky.
And it works! As long as you keep at it. That’s the thing about skincare, vitamins and other things like learning a language or giving up alcohol - you do have to keep at it.
Some housekeeping: I do not use affiliated links on Substack, I rely on the generosity of readers to subscribe - for only £3.50 a month A BARGAIN! - to keep advertising and affiliated links at bay. Those links above are to Amazon just for illustrative purposes only, if you want to buy these, get them from wherever you like. Lookfantastic is better than its 90s-women’s-magazine name suggests and has always served me very well.
What about the fruity-voiced, be-dimpled matriarch? Wanted to punch her a lot. Also laughed a lot at fact no one had anything on their hot shot desks apart from new notepads. ( zero doodles). Seriously hated the pleated trench coat … God, I’m a miserable sod
Love Ameliorate, except the smell…any recs for readying one’s feet for the summer?? I spent a fortune on Margaret Dabbs products without seeing any real results.
Have a love/hate relationship with The Split (as a family law barrister)…love NW, NW’s hair and the interiors, but cringe at the cases! x