Bloody hell, what are they? Bed bugs, says the man in the chemist, but who knew bed bugs were that big? The size of pit ponies … almost. Maybe it’s just the ones in Sunderland: Mackem bed bugs.
Or maybe it’s just that Dark Angel, ITV’s two-part drama about Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, wants to be very clear about what’s what and what’s going on. Bed bugs, dialogue, plot lines – make them all bigger, bloody great signposts: this is going on.
Mary Ann (Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey’s Anna) has come to Sunderland from Seaham, down the coast, with unemployed husband number one and their only remaining child (Mary Ann’s offspring tend not to last very long, like her husbands). While scrubbing out their squalid rented room, she finds the supersized insects in the mattress.
“Arsenic, it’s the only thing that works against bed bugs that I know of,” says the chemist.
Got that? Arsenic – the well-known deadly poison? But just in case you missed it, Mary Ann tells her daughter to stay away. “This is arsenic; it’s poisonous – that’s why it kills the bugs.” Not just bugs ...
First she has to write her name down in a book: the government doesn’t allow them to hand out arsenic to anyone who wants it any more, the chemist explains. “They’d be no husbands left,” jokes Mary Ann. Ha ha.
“Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you, love,” says the handsome bit of rough who’s just then walked into the store.
He’s called Joe Natrass – sounds like mattress – also infested by the look of it, though he scrubs up well, he says flirtatiously. We won’t bother with the names of Mary Ann’s husbands or children – they’re temporary, as I mentioned.
All set then. Useless husband: check. Next bedmate (and potential fatherer of further children) lined up: check. Poison: check. Also life insurance in place – that’s important. Mary Ann’s stepdad George (he lasts the distance, so he can have a name, and an actor, Alun Armstrong) sorted the life insurance for the first one, but after that Mary Ann develops a taste for monetising her fellas and makes sure they’re insured herself.
Oh – and the teapot. At first glance, just an ordinary brown family teapot, given to Mary Ann by her own mother, because nothing says home more than an old brown family teapot.
Until it becomes … the Teapot of Death. Into which a few drops of you-know-what can be snuck. And soon hubby number one is gasping and spluttering and dissolving on the inside.
Dark Angel settles into its pattern. Scrubbing, pumping water, rent overdue – tough Victorian life with only the occasional shag to brighten the gloom – every single one of which results in a baby. And then all the babies die, another little coffin lowered into the ground. Is she killing them too, or some of them, or are they really dying of scarlet fever and typhoid etc? I wasn’t quite sure about that.
But anyway, the fun’s with the mariticide, which starts with a trip to the 19th-century equivalent of the Legal & General to pick up a policy, just in case. And then, back at home (to paraphrase): you useless man, what good are you to me, especially now you’ve lost your job/mojo in the bedroom, but never mind, let’s have a nice cuppa tea shall we, aye love … And down from the shelf comes the Teapot of Death.
Another husband is also lowered into the ground. Mary Ann goes for a windy walk on the beach to reflect on being really really bad, then has a really good shag with dirty Joe Natrass under the pier, before popping into the L&G to pick up her £35. That was the going rate for a husband, back then.
She gets through a couple in the opening episode, and is well into number three. There’ll be more to come. And we know where it’s going, as that’s where it begins: at the end, Durham gaol, with a dirty great gallows in the yard.
Stepdad George is over to say goodbye. “When I think of the day you came home to us,” he says, sadly. “When I think of your dark eyes.”
“Them was days of joy to all our souls,” reflects Mary Ann. It’s all even more fun with a north-east accent.
I may not have the strength for part two, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode, though possibly not always as I was supposed to. A Halloween hoot.
And another thing…
The Crown (Netflix, from Friday). With Claire Foy, as convincing as Queen as she was as Anne Boleyn, and Matt (Smith) The Doctor as Phil The Greek. Properly splendid: get involved.
