Marriage, BBC1 review — Nicola Walker and Sean Bean star in disarming portrait of a relationship

“You ate the fucking chips!” a woman cries out across the aisle of a plane to her husband. An inelegant argument about the snack purchased at the airport café has consumed the last hours of their holiday and has built to this explosive, public crescendo. Despite the extra weight of marital tension in the cabin, the flight heads for take-off and the man becomes too anxious to keep bickering. As his wife’s reassuring hand reaches out to him all the acrimony drains away.

The scene serves as a perfect introduction to Marriage, a new four-part drama that traces the rhythms and fluctuations of a relationship well into its third decade. Following Ian (Sean Bean) and Emma (Nicola Walker), it’s the kind of show that successfully pulls off the trick of turning the television screen into a mirror: reflecting real life with disarming, unvarnished fidelity. Little happens here that transcends the everyday — at several points we just watch them watch TV in familiar, comfortable silence.

Comfort, however, is not afforded to us viewers. The level of intimacy that creator Stefan Golaszewski achieves with his keenly observed script and the rawness of the two lead performances make us feel like we’re intruding on the privacy of actual people — not least in a moment in which Emma and Ian break down by the grave of their long-deceased infant son. In another agonising, drawn-out scene, Emma makes a sandwich for her elderly father (James Bolam) as he offers withering comments about her marriage. “What have you got to talk about?” he jibes.

Communication — or its absence — is the show’s preoccupation. While the dialogue provides a mixture of banalities, pointless quarrelling and humorous exchanges, there’s a notable dearth of meaningful conversations. Instead, we see the toll of Ian’s inarticulacy in his fixed, painfully strained smile and witness how quickly discussions avoided out of ease can metastasise into substantial arguments and issues of trust.

But there’s also a recognition of the non-verbal vocabulary that has sustained them for this long. At one point, the couple share half-completed thoughts about how passion dissipates with the years. “When you’ve been together for as long as we have . . . ” Ian starts dishearteningly, before trailing off. The next shot reveals the two kissing at the station like shameless teenagers.

Tender moments provide some levity to a series that, for all its authenticity, can feel a bit stifling and drab. Intentional though that may be for a show about a long marriage, it’s one to be avoided by anyone looking to TV as a means of escaping reality.

★★★☆☆

From August 14 at 9pm on BBC1 and iPlayer

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