Virtues signalling

True to form, while the whole world seems to be abuzz about Adolescence, I've only just caught up with a previous Stephen Graham vehicle, The Virtues. 

Given Graham's involvement, direction by Shane Meadows, Jack Thorne on co-writing duties and a potent PJ Harvey soundtrack, the 2019 Channel 4 four-parter was never likely to be a laugh a minute. And so it proves - not least because it draws on a long-repressed traumatic experience from Meadows' own childhood.

The Virtues chronicles, in devastating close-up, the damage that can be wrought at an early age, and the scars that never truly heal. It put me in mind of Philip Larkin's lines in 'This Be The Verse' - "Man hands on misery to man. / It deepens like a coastal shelf" - especially in the final part, when lead character Joseph confronts his abuser Damon.

Joseph's alcoholism may have resulted in his relationship breaking down, but the focus is on its root causes. When his son Shea leaves for Australia, with his former partner setting out to start a new life, the sudden sense of separation brings back to the surface demons that he has never really wrestled, or at least certainly never banished.

Graham is predictably superb as the bruised, vulnerable Joseph, but joint lead Niamh Algar is also incredible as Dinah, Joseph's sister Anna's sister-in-law, whose own past haunts her in different ways. The pair's blossoming attraction is portrayed with a touching awkwardness, and there is a raw, improvisational, naturalistic quality in general, especially when Joseph is sat on Shea's bed saying his goodbyes and when Joseph is interrogated at the dinner table by Anna's kids.

Meadows' direction is as masterful as ever - in fact, perhaps even more so. The drinking binge sequence in Part 1 in particular is as viscerally real and disorienting as the drug scene in Dead Man's Shoes, in terms of the way it descends into chaos and replicates the sensation.

And, like Dead Man's Shoes, the extraordinary climactic episode of The Virtues left me floored for days.