Three middle-aged women may be all you need for anything. To run a business, raise a village, end a war, retool a civilisation, empty the loft. Even more usefully, you can make a great murder-mystery caper with them, as Lisa McGee (a fourth woman! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it) has done with her new series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.
McGee made her name, of course, with Derry Girls – a nigh-on perfect sitcom that followed the trials and tribulations of a group of Northern Irish Catholic schoolgirls (and a beleaguered English cousin) as they went about the chaotic business of growing up in the mid-90s at the tail end of the Troubles. The main characters of the new offering don’t map precisely on to the previous one but the DNA of Derry Girls as an entity remains gloriously alive (is DNA alive? I feel a curious urge to consult Sister Michael). How to Get to Heaven has all of the verve, acuity and havoc dancing on top of the immaculate plotting that you find in McGee’s masterwork. The only difference is that one of the schoolgirls is dead. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps not.
