One of the most damning indictments of Irish television in its 75-year history is that it has never produced a speculative drama of note. There is no Irish X Files, no Celtic Doctor Who, no home-grown Children of the Stones.
That is, unless we count kids’ TV, which aeons ago gave us Fortycoats and, most notably, the underappreciated example of hauntology that is Wanderly Wagon, a piece of shoestring 1970s weirdovision which stumbled into an accidental eeriness.
Ever since, Irish drama has had an aversion to anything with a whiff of geekery. Nerd chic has taken root across the world – but not here. Perhaps in another 20 years we will have caught up.
So the makers of The Unreal (RTÉ One, Sunday, 5.10pm) are to be congratulated. Bringing ancient Irish mythology into the present day, this enjoyable children’s caper is a family-friendly reimagining of the Japanese horror film Ring in which the monster is a nightmare version of the squeaky-voiced 1980s puppet Bosco.
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In Ring the unquiet spirit of a murdered girl, Sadako, crawls from your telly and brings murder and mayhem. The Unreal tells the equivalent story without the violence and with an infusion of Irish folk horror. The villain of the piece is the púca, an ancient spirit who lives in an old VHS tape – until he escapes and starts to bother Kevin (Senan Jennings), a moochy teenager dragged against his will to a family holiday in a caravan park in the middle of nowhere.
The Unreal is unlikely to win any awards. It’s an RTÉ Sunday-afternoon drama with dialogue and acting to match. But the púca is genuinely creepy, a kid’s mascot as reimagined by Clive Barker.
Its writer, Rodney Lee, understands that science fiction, fantasy and horror speak to us because they offer a way to interrogate present-day issues. In the case of the Kelly family, one of those is the stress of just trying to get by in modern Ireland.
Kevin’s older sister, Katie (Kate Brady), has had her personality stolen by her smartphone. (She harbours unrealistic dreams of being an influencer.) His dad (Joseph McGucken) has been fired from his job and is pretending that he isn’t battling crippling depression. Kevin’s perma-stressed mother (the former Den presenter Kathryn McKiernan) is under such pressure at work that she hasn’t told her boss she is vacationing and is taking Zoom calls from the holiday home.
The Unreal juxtaposes the old Ireland of púcaí and fairy forts with the modern one of too much screen time and depression among middle-aged men who don’t know what purpose they serve to either their family or society. That’s a fascinating mix, and if it’s “only” kids’ entertainment, how encouraging nevertheless to encounter an RTÉ production that isn’t another home-repair show or nordic-noir rip-off.
