"There she goes, there she goes again. Racing through my brain and I just can't contain this feeling that remains" - There She Goes, The Las
DYRK1A! I'd never heard of it and I imagine most other people haven't either. It's an enzyme, it's a gene and if it's a gene you have then you end up with a fairly severe chromosomal disorder. That's what Rosie Ann Yates (Miley Locke) has in There She Goes (BBC2/iPlayer, series one originally shown back in October and November 2018, written by Shaun Pye and directed by Simon Hynd) and it makes her life, and that of her parents and wider family, very difficult.
Rosie, based on Pye's daughter who was born with the same condition, can't talk (though she can certainly make a lot of noise), she's obsessed with the letters X and Z, she bites her parents, she lies down in the middle of the road, she spits her food out, she pours milk over her head, she likes looking at sweetcorn, and she hides her poohs. She has no friends except for her family and her cuddly hippo, Hippo.
Despite all of this, she is absolutely adorable. She loves Mini Cheddars, bubblebaths, and That's Not My Monster and in her pink leggings she looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. But every waking moment of her life somebody needs to keep an eye on her. Most of the time that's her mum, Emily (Jessica Hynes). Emily gets on with motherhood competently but not easily which is more than can be said for Rosie's dad Simon (David Tennant).
To begin with I thought Simon was my kind of guy. He likes a drink, he likes a read of the paper, and he likes doing crosswords but then it becomes clear he likes considerably more than one drink and in the past would be out every night before coming home in the wee small hours and opening a bottle of red. He seems to be unable to cope with Rosie or is that just an excuse for the drinking?
He certainly makes some pretty cruel comments about his own daughter. That may (or may not) be a coping mechanism but it certainly doesn't feel right. Rosie's condition can be genuinely upsetting but Simon's response to it is, in all ways, far worse. I worried he was still my kind of guy. I hope not.
Emily and Simon's different approaches to parenthood, and Simon's selfishness and entitlement, threaten to pull them, and their family, apart and it's often left to Rosie's older brother Ben (Edan Hayhurst) to be the voice of reason. Ben is a handsome, well adjusted young lad who likes playing FIFA, watching Lord Of The Rings, and sharing 'dank memes'.
But obviously he's aware enough to see that his needs sometimes have to be sidelined so that everyone can look out for, and look after, Rosie. Both Ben and Rosie have a good relationship with their grandparents but Emily's mum, Cath (Serena Evans), struggles to accept that Rosie is different and insists on making her (or trying to make her wear) pretty dresses.
Not Rosie's style at all. She much prefers Grandad Gandalf (Nigel Planer) who simply pulls faces at her, pretends to steal her nose, and blows raspberries. Absolute textbook grandad behaviour. Simon's mum, Anne (Jo Cameron Brown) and stepdad John (Philip Jackson) clearly love both Ben and Rosie (even if they sometimes despair of Simon) but they're a curious mix of old fashioned no nonsense grandparents (safety gates on the stairs are a waste of time) and silver surfing culture vultures. John reads Rosie a traditional Botswanan children's story and Anne recommends Alejandro Jodorowsky movies.
All of this actually creates a realistic, and moving, family dynamic. In a world of Star Wars, Mario Kart, Countryfile, Peroni, and Kronenbourg (and with a soundtrack of Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths, Big Country, Christine And The Queens, Metronomy, Charles Aznavour, Simple Minds, and, of course, The Las) there are some very sad, deeply touching moments. One of which is accompanied by This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren which, of course, totally sent me off.
There are trips to The White Hart in Southwark and The Pear Tree in Hammersmith as well as one to Pizza Express in Hungerford (wonder why they didn't chose the Woking branch) and there are decent supporting performances from Ben Willbond as Simon and Emily's neighbour Chris (Chris's daughter Ellie (Maya Kelly) is 'normal' and her model of an Aztec temple won second prize in a school craft contest), Oliver Gibbs, Freya Perry, and Harper Perry as younger versions of Ben and Rosie, and Simon's friends, Helen (Yasmine Akram) and Barney (Justin Edwards).
Barney wears Crocs and reads books about the history of the postal service in Middlesbrough and is, accordingly, the victim of some of Simon's more spiteful jokes. Not least when he calls him Jabba The Cunt after a slight weight gain. It's not the funniest line or the funniest scene but there are some genuine laughs to be had. For example, when Simon asks Ben "why don't you learn to drive?" and Ben replies "because I'm eleven" or when he mentions a pooh so big that Jocky Wilson would be proud of it.
There's a Malcolm X joke I wish I'd thought of, Emily worrying Simon will get drunk and call his mum a cunt, a remark about "the Leicester City of sperm", and a scene where Rosie gets a very unfortunate haircut and ends up looking, according to Simon, like Dave Hill from Slade. Though Cath thinks she looks more like Richard III.
To find humour in these situations is human but the jokes, barring Simon's drunken barbs, are never cruel or at the expense of Rosie and her disability. At all times, you feel for her as surely as you feel the frustration and worry of everyone else. Hynes and Hayhurst are great as Emily and Ben and Tennant does a wonderful job in making us have sympathy for a character who can say and do some pretty awful things. But as Rosie, Miley Locke steals every scene. I'll be delving into series two soon enough and I'm hoping Rosie will continue being the best Rosie she can.
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