The American culture website Vulture recently drew the ire of the Irish twittersphere over its cringeful attempt to ridicule Barry Keoghan over the outfit he wore to this week’s Met Gala. Fair enough, Keoghan was dressed as a steampunk Willy Wonka and deserved a ribbing. But Vulture got the wrong end of the shillelagh and imagined Keoghan speaking in a sort of Lucky Charms fever dream patter – a speech pattern that, to non-Americans, read like previously unpublished lyrics to Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
Most Irish people rolled their eyes – but for those who didn’t, similar delights await in Netflix’s toe-curling west Cork-set true crime dramedy Bodkin (on Netflix from Thursday). It’s yet another entry in the worst genre ever – the Irish rural picaresque where booze flows, nuns scowl, and everyone enunciates like characters from an unproduced Martin McDonagh screenplay.
But for once, we can’t blame the Banshees of Inisherin’s mad-shtick man. Incredibly, Bodkin is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama under their $65 million deal with Netflix. In keeping with the thoughtful and socially conscious Obama brand, it sets out to critique our obsession with true crime podcasts and to have fun with Americans and their misty-eyed vision of Ireland. Yet while skewering Irish America, it indulges in plenty of stereotyping of its own and isn’t nearly as clever as it fancies itself.
Siobhán Cullen stars as Dove, a Dublin-born reporter with the Guardian. She has a condescending and outmoded opinion of Ireland and is arm twisted into returning to Ireland to accompany irritating Irish-American Gilbert Power (Will Forte) as he makes a podcast about ritualised folk horror killings in west Cork.
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Given her chip on the shoulder about the old country, Dove is predictably despairing of Will’s romanticism. Yet if the locals in Bodkin are gradually revealed to be putting on a sly act in front of the naive American, the series nonetheless plumbs the depths of diddly dee twaddle.
In particular, it fails to do any justice whatsoever to west Cork – a place that, depending on the time, company and quality of daylight, can feel overpoweringly cosmopolitan and as if it is on the final approach to the ends of the earth. Here, it’s just Netflix recreating Father Ted without the jokes or self-awareness.
Bodkin is the work of Londoner Jez Scharf, who spent time in west Cork as a teenager. A little knowledge truly is dangerous as he has populated his script with the standard rowdy, shifty, dysfunctional peasants who say “me” instead of “my” and swear as if paid by the f-bomb.
Amid all the grunting and gurning, you have to feel for the Irish cast, who must be aware of the nonsense to which they are reduced (Pat Shortt plays a version of his D’Unbelievables character, though here it is presented as a straight dramatic role).
A word, too, about the title. Bodkin is the name of the village where the murders occurred and which now holds an annual Samhain festival.
“Bodkin” is obviously made up and feels like a passive-aggressive commentary on silly Irish placenames. But of course, these names aren’t silly. No matter how whimsical they may sound to outside ears, they are blunt-force English translations from the original Irish. This isn’t an obscure point: Brian Friel’s Translations is about that very subject.
The lesson, alas, soars over the head of Bodkin, a deeply annoying show that thinks it is critiquing cliches about Ireland when actively adding to the stockpile. Let’s ignore it and hope it goes away.
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