Put a whole load of psychologically tormented souls in one Scottish holiday park and what do you get?
Turns out, the answer is a raging inferno and a dead body. At least, that’s the premise of Summerwater, Channel 4’s latest thriller series – which makes a rather eloquent case for avoiding the Highlands as a holiday destination. Or at least, avoiding the type of destination where a group of angry neighbours live side by side in wooden holiday cabins.
The show operates primarily via flashback, with police questioning the holidaymakers to figure out who exactly caused the fire in the first place. They have their work cut out. Not many of the people in this series – adapted from the novel of the same name by Sarah Moss – are likeable.
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We get to know just how unpleasant they truly all are as the show focuses on a different set of characters each episode, building towards its dramatic conclusion even as it explores the inner worlds of those inhabiting the camp.
There’s Justine (Valene Kane), a chronically depressed mother who can’t get over the fact she was passed by for a promotion at work. Former GP David (Dougray Scott, an exercise in repressed violence), who is hiding feelings of guilt from an affair he conduced decades ago. Ian (Jamie Sives), who has plunged his family into financial ruin with a series of bad investments. Oh, and a reclusive couple (Shereen Cutkelvin and Anders Hayward) who are trying to work out their relationship issues, primarily by having as much sex as possible to distract from them.
The holidaymakers, some of whom have been coming here for “decades”, we are told, clash with the newcomers – particularly Polish couple Martynas and Alina (Arnas Fedaravičius and Anna Próchniak) who host loud parties at their cabin and cause Justine’s husband Steve (Daniel Rigby) to complain loudly about the “bloody noise”.
It’s a recipe for tension, and directors Robert McKillop and Fiona Walton excel at milking every last drop of it out of the landscape. Every indoor shot is framed by close walls and closed curtains; the outdoor ones let the brooding, spectacularly grey Scottish countryside do the talking for it.
It’s an apt metaphor for the characters, many of whom are trapped inside their own heads, reliving traumas gone by that end up spilling out into the present day.
We end up spending a lot of time in the past, with varying levels of success. Flashbacks involving Justine, in which she takes out her rage on the person who was promoted instead of her, Maya, do feel genuinely interesting. On the flipside, David’s flashbacks to his doomed love affair ring a little bland and distract from the more compelling relationship unfolding in the present day: his tortured relationship with wife Annie (an excellent Shirley Henderson).
What we end up with is a puzzle box of a show that feels intricately layered, but ultimately very messy. What is the plot? Sometimes, it’s hard to be sure; clues and any interesting points the show might have to make about, say, immigration, are buried under ham-fisted layers of self-indulgent flashbacks. Mysteries abound here; the issue is, so few of them are solved.
Streaming now on Channel 4
