I came to The Woman in the Wall unprepared. I’d pre-read nothing and knew only that it starred Ruth Wilson (The Affair, Luther, His Dark Materials) — arguably the best of her generation at pulling off deliciously unhinged — and was based on Ireland’s atrocious Magdalene Laundries. It is, you’ll know, a cardinal sin for a journalist to admit they haven’t done any research, but better to watch TV that way, I think; less hype equals less disappointment. As it transpires, a heads up would have been useful for this schizophrenic cross-genre melée. So, allow me to provide that public service here.
Creator Joe Murtagh has described his new six-part BBC One series as ‘genre-bending’ and, the first episode (the only one the BBC has allowed reviewers to watch) flip-flops from dark comedy to psychological thriller to horror with a sprinkling of whodunnit. It all centres around Lorna (Wilson). She lives in a fictional Irish village called Kilkinure and we quickly learn that she had been sent off to one of the inhumane catholic church workhouses, the Magdalene Laundries, as a young teen and forced by the twisted nuns to give up her baby.
