There have been mutterings that Summerwater (Channel 4, 9pm) is a sort of grimdark British equivalent of the White Lotus – the hit series in which a rotating cast of obnoxiously wealthy Americans lose their marbles in a glamorous holiday resort.
The truth is that it’s more Withnail and I without the humour and with a rising body count. Dank, grey, and grim – and that’s just the look Dougray Scott’s disgruntled GP pulls when he tries to ditch his wife (Shirley Henderson) at a lakeside café and drive for the hills.
The tale, adapted from the 2020 Sarah Moss novel, starts at the end—with a fire rippling through the eponymous holiday resort near Loch Lomond in Scotland. The story then rewinds to the hours leading up to the blaze and is told from the perspective of the various holidaymakers, each trapped in their own private hell.
They include Justine, a paranoid mother whose addiction to jogging is putting pressure on her dodgy ticker. She is played by Valene Kane, Newry-born daughter of All-Ireland-winning Down footballer Val Kane, and she delivers a forceful, if one-note performance as a woman whose feud with a work colleague has spiralled out of control.
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So far, so relatable – who hasn’t thrown daggers at the newcomer who sweeps in to bag that juicy promotion? But things veer uncomfortably towards the supernatural when Justine stumbles upon a tumbledown cabin in the woods and— so it seems— embarks on a naughty romp with the two ghost-like entities she discovers within.
Is she hallucinating? Or flashing back to a previous incident at the lake 30 years previously. The latter is certainly plausible – though, given that the action starts after the fire, it would mean we’re having a flashback inside a flashback.
There are further journeys back in time as the second of six episodes turns to Scott’s down-in-the-dumps doctor, David. His wife Annie has dementia and is sailing off to distant shores – although the drugs that David is stirring into her morning coffee can’t be doing a great deal for her mental clarity. He is haunted by his wife’s decline – but also by the affair he had as a younger man with a woman whom he, in the end, spurned.
Summerwater is well made, but you can tell that it is adapted from a novel, and that the story was perhaps best left on the page. The adaptation is ephemeral, a bit confusing, and occasionally defies logic. At one point, for instance, David contemplates shoving his wife off the top of a cliff – which she later brings up. But how could she have known? The dilemma played out entirely inside his mind.
The script struggles more generally to articulate the characters’ inner torment. Justine, for instance, spends much of her screen time jogging miserably while David has the anguished expression of someone waiting at a bus stop for a Bus Éireann morning service – all he can do is scream into the void, knowing it won’t do any good.
Tough on him, but for the viewer, there is the tempting option of switching over to something sunnier and more pleasant.
Summerwater concludes on Channel 4 next Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at 9pm. Each episode is also available on the Channel 4 streaming service.
