{"id":409017,"date":"2026-04-20T23:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/409017\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T23:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:06:08","slug":"piping-hot-deliriously-strange-new-crime-drama-steeped-in-magical-realism-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/409017\/","title":{"rendered":"Piping hot, deliriously strange new crime drama steeped in magical realism \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Combine The Godfather with Trainspotting and Baz Luhrmann<\/a>\u2019s Romeo + Juliet \u2013 then sprinkle in full-strength David Lynch-style suburban surrealism and out of the microwave pops Charlotte Regan\u2019s piping hot, deliriously strange new crime drama, Mint (BBC<\/a> One, 9pm).<\/p>\n

You have to credit Regan, who cut her teeth making grime and rap videos, for going out on a limb with this tale of star-crossed lovers in small-town Scotland<\/a>. She declares her intentions at the outset by introducing Emma Laird\u2019s Shannon \u2013 the Juliet of the piece \u2013 floating in slow motion mid-air, like an extra in a Coldplay video.<\/p>\n

From there, the weirdness keeps coming, like too much toothpaste squirting from the tube. When mobster boss dad Dylan (Sam Riley) squares off against a rival gang, he does so holding a Game of Thrones\u2013style broadsword. A scene in which father-and-son henchmen are forced to fight for Dylan\u2019s amusement plays out like a dream sequence from an art film. The only thing the first episode is missing is a scene in which Shannon fantasises about her new love interest, Arran (Benjamin Coyle-Larner, aka rapper Loyle Carner), while sparks fill the sky \u2013 only, no, that\u2019s here too.<\/p>\n

A whimsical gangster romance will not be to all tastes and some viewers will hate Mint with a passion. The last thing it wants to be is realistic. Riley\u2019s gangland bruiser looks more like a tortured Morrissey fan than a drug baron, while Shannon\u2019s blank-eyed mother, Cat (Laura Fraser), appears to have wandered in from a Wes Anderson movie and is unsure how to get back.<\/p>\n

The aversion to realism extends to Shannon\u2019s dangerous game of mutual fascination with Arran. They randomly clap eyes on one another, and that\u2019s it. They are fated to be together for all time. The wrinkle is that Arran is affiliated with a rival gang who very much want to remove Shannon\u2019s dad from the picture \u2013 forcing her to choose love or family.<\/p>\n

Actually, it\u2019s not much of a choice because none of the characters has anything in the way of agency. They just bob along, props in Regan\u2019s beautiful dioramas \u2013 a place of extravagant Stanley Kubrick style zoom-shots and visual non sequiturs, such as when scratchy home video footage is followed by sumptuous slow-motion montages.<\/p>\n

Laird plays Shannon as a wilful young woman who doesn\u2019t quite understand the stakes at play in this world of brutal grown-ups. But the true childlike quality comes from Regan, who unleashes an arsenal of magical realism trickery like a kid let loose in a candy emporium. She has made a sugary treat \u2013 gorgeous but best enjoyed in moderate doses so that all the sweetness doesn\u2019t turn sour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Combine The Godfather with Trainspotting and Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Romeo + Juliet \u2013 then sprinkle in full-strength David Lynch-style…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1578,93,61,60,9036],"class_list":{"0":"post-409017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-scotland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}