I’m glad I’m not a prestigious limited TV drama. It looks exhausting. Such is the faint but persistent feeling that comes with watching The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (the slightly laborious title being the perfect foreshadow of the entire experience). It is good – it is – but, crikey, you can feel every ounce of effort that has gone into making it so.
Every scene is gorgeously shot and dripping with meaning, rife with Symbolism-with-a-capital-S, suffused with evocations of memories and studded with seeds of future plotlines. It is a story built around secrets and you can hardly move for hints. But once you get used to this thickly portentous vibe, there is plenty to admire.
