Mayflies TV review — end-of-life drama takes in male bonding and biscuits

Male bonding on TV should usually come with a biohazard warning, but new BBC drama Mayflies celebrates a kind less often seen on screen: one of intimacy, compassion and love. A two-part adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel, it follows a decades-spanning friendship, forged in a dreary Ayrshire adolescence, and intensified in the face of looming mid-life tragedy. Along the way it visits clammy nightclubs and sterile cancer wards, and jumps back and forth between scenes of youthful dreaming and end-of-life reflection.

In the story’s present, schoolteacher Tully (Tony Curran) has been given a terminal diagnosis, but he’s less fazed by the prospect of death than the process of dying. Fearing an “onslaught of sentiment” and unwanted pressure from his partner Anna (Ashley Jensen) to undergo chemotherapy, Tully asks author Jimmy (Martin Compston) to come to his home and act as the “campaign manager” for his wish to meet a dignified end. On his itinerary for the next four months is a wedding, a final gig at a local pub, and a one-way trip to Switzerland.

But no man is an island — especially not one as magnetic as Tully. Beyond the bittersweet moments of stolen joy and fatalistic jokes, the show is driven by a thoughtful exploration of how death liberates the soon-to-be deceased, and devastates those left behind. Jimmy is torn between loyalty to a best friend and a reluctance to let go; Anna meanwhile cannot help but see Tully’s desire to end his life prematurely as a betrayal of the life they’ve built together.

The interjecting flashbacks — focusing largely on a fateful trip to a concert in Manchester — occasionally dilute the emotional complexity with misty-eyed 1980s nostalgia and a subplot involving another friend that isn’t quite as impactful as it’s clearly meant to be. But an array of stirring performances means that the majority of emotional blows do land — not least one last, wrenching conversation about, of all things, biscuits.

★★★☆☆

On BBC1 on December 28 and 29 at 9pm. Both parts on iPlayer from December 27