How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is the kind of series Netflix relishes in gutting straight after series one – it’s the perfect mix of funny and sad, twisting and turning a different way each episode. I can only pray it gets a well-deserved series two.
Lisa McGee’s new series follows three friends, Saoirse, Dara and Robyn, as they travel to the wake of their dead friend, Greta, out in the Irish countryside. However, when they get there things just don’t sit right — is it the weird little town, the offputting family, or the fact that it’s not Greta’s body in the coffin?
The primary draw is the excellent writing. As always, McGee doesn’t let up with the dialogue. It’s going at a hundred miles an hour, and it leans heavy on the catholic jokes — ‘she had an attack of the catholics’ or ‘I don’t do business in God’s house. I don’t trust him” are great examples. These genuinely laugh-out-loud moments balance out a show that excels in tension and shock, without becoming tiring.
If there is any criticism, then it might be a definite closeness to McGee’s previous successful series, Derry Girls. With a setting, actors and character types seemingly borrowed wholesale, it’s hard not to see this as drawn from the same well. However, the Belfast setting does allow for the transfer of a cast that brings a particular style of comedy to life.There’s no harm in McGee doing what she is excellent at.
It is also a show with a bigger scope kitted out, with a proper Netflix budget and a longer plot. The whole thing has shades of Burn After Reading, or Hot Fuzz in its offbeat rural setting. Personally I found myself thinking of A Series of Unfortunate Events, mainly in the way that it gets a series of talented actors like Ardal O’Hanlon and Michelle Fairley to have fun with some weird little cameos.
I really relish the increased demand for British and Irish shows abroad — I think the world deserves to see Derry Girls as many times as I have (which is about five times, give or take). It can be frustrating to see the sheen of locality applied to shows that are really made for overseas audiences. Maybe the best thing about How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is how it mixes all its influences together into something that could only be made in Ireland, and could only have the name McGee written all over it.
Photo by Ainars Djatlevskis on Unsplash