Shannon is 22. Her dad is a fearsome gangster. Her mum is an uncanny amalgamation of a Stepford and mob wife. Her brother’s a computer nerd; her gran is a hard-as-nails nymphomaniac. Shannon doesn’t have a job, hobbies or much of a social life. Instead, she hangs round her parents’ house, set amid swathes of brown scrubland on the outskirts of an anonymous Scottish town, waiting to fall in love. Mint begins on the day she does – at first sight, no less – across the tracks of a deserted train station.
Sparks fly, literally as well as figuratively. Having made her name with Scrapper – a funny, poignant and delightfully creative film about a grieving girl reunited with her estranged father – 31-year-old writer-director Charlotte Regan’s first proper TV project is patently the work of an auteur. A patchwork of VHS-style footage, surreal daydream sequences, gorgeously odd framing and special effects that stay on the right side of YA kookiness, Mint might be the most outrageously beautiful television show since Twin Peaks. I’ve certainly never witnessed a more visually stunning masturbation scene than the one in the opening episode. As Emma Laird’s Shannon fantasises about Arran, her new paramour, the lights of the surrounding suburbs flicker violently before sparks from industrial machinery arc across the screen and armed police jog silently into her family home.
