Curfew is a counterfactual. But instead of positing a world in which Hitler was killed at birth or John F Kennedy was not assassinated, Paramount’s drama, adapted from Jayne Cowie’s book After Dark, imagines a world in which women are safe. Or, at least, in which extraordinary measures have been taken to curtail male violence and prioritise women’s security.
Men are electronically tagged and live under a 12-hour curfew. From 7pm to 7am, they cannot leave home. If they do, police cars descend and they are swiftly arrested. In one of many extreme suspensions of disbelief we are asked to make, this system is, it seems, foolproof.
