![\"561931\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1476997_561931_439748.jpg\")
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\nMint, BBC1
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\u201cHaving made her name with Scrapper \u2013 a funny, poignant and delightfully creative film about a grieving girl reunited with her estranged father \u2013 31-year-old writer-director Charlotte Regan\u2019s 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\u2019ve certainly never witnessed a more visually stunning masturbation scene than the one in the opening episode. As Emma Laird\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis won\u2019t be for everyone. Depending on your threshold for surrealism, Mint may occasionally feel like it\u2019s floating pretentiously above its own plot. In a recent interview, Regan said that \u201cgrowing up, all I saw was films where everyone working class was depressed and I wanted to make something with them happy\u201d. Even in a story that primes us for tragedy, that instinct pulses through every scene. Between the violence and brooding machismo, there is unmitigated joy. Mint is how you make something ancient feel alive.\u201d \u201cWe all know what happens in Romeo and Juliet but, again no spoilers, this story arc is slightly different. Emotionally it didn\u2019t pack as much punch as it could have because I didn\u2019t feel invested in the characters. But the performances are strong and Regan should be commended for trying something new, even if style sometimes triumphs over substance.\u201d \u201cThis level of experimentation means that Mint is hit and miss. It throws everything at the screen and not all of it sticks, with too many holding shots of dark, satanic cooling towers and a reliance on grainy VHS footage to invoke nostalgia that can become tiresome. Personally, I found Lindsay Duncan\u2019s mad matriarch too much, and Coyle-Larner\u2019s supposedly irresistible love interest too little. But at a time when British TV drama is being swamped by the money and the sheer volume of US output, Mint does offer a way forward, which is to commit to young film-makers and let them off the leash. In a world of TV middle-ism, where both comedy and drama now seem to operate under a safety-first mandate, Mint at least makes its mark.\u201d \u201cWhy the first hour was divided into two episodes is anybody\u2019s guess, though this is a device the Beeb is using more frequently. It did allow writer and director Charlotte Regan to concentrate on Shannon\u2019s viewpoint in the opening half and Arran\u2019s in the second. More intrusive was the heavy-handed emphasis on magical fantasy and metaphor. Every time Shannon looked at Arran, her eyes filled with sparkles. And whenever we saw the boy from her perspective, he was surrounded by a blaze of sparks that burst like champagne bubbles.\u201d \u201cUnchosen is set in the world of a Christian splinter sect. Everyone lives simply in grace and harmony, following Christ\u2019s teaching of peace and love for all humankind, with men and women sharing equally in domestic and other labour. They exist as shining lights for what is possible when you set aside the patriarchal nonsense and other accretions that gather around religions. Every episode is a delight and nothing much happens because everyone is living such a good and godly life. I jest! Unchosen is not here to break new ground. It is here to deliver by-numbers drama that has inexplicably attracted the talented likes of Siobhan Finneran and Christopher Eccleston to its cast and you should proceed with your expectations lowered.\u201d \u201cThis sect is deeply repressive and punitive (no phones, no internet), its women are handmaids in headscarves and frocks, its leader (a typically gripping Christopher Eccleston) a hypocrite, preaching about God\u2019s love while privately behaving in a decidedly loveless way. And what follows is an unpredictable, if ultimately melodramatic psychological drama motored by dark manipulations. Suffice to say, in the final episode we have another deluge and by then it\u2019s downright biblical.\u201d
Patrick Smith, The Independent<\/a><\/p>\n
Carol Midgley, The Times<\/a><\/p>\n
Benji Wilson, Telegraph<\/a><\/p>\n
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail<\/a><\/p>\n
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n
James Jackson, The Times<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mint, BBC1
\u201cHaving made her name with Scrapper \u2013 a funny, poignant and delightfully creative film about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-618895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}