Rain Dogs, a new rough gem of a series, embraces contradiction and howls at conventions and expectations. It follows a sex worker facing eviction who’s also a first-class graduate from a top university. The love-story element is between a single mother and an upper-class gay man. It plays as both a bruising tragedy about the abject poverty that anyone can fall into — and as an obscene, gallows humour comedy. And while the show has an indie feel, it is a co-production by the BBC and HBO.
Created by the writer Cash Carraway, this bracingly original London-set show shouldn’t be mistaken for an adaptation of her 2019 memoir Skint Estate, which takes place in much the same world. Nevertheless, the eight-parter is imbued with uncommon authenticity in its shaggy tale of Costello Jones (Daisy May Cooper, outstanding) and her attempt to build a settled life for herself and 10-year-old daughter, Iris (Fleur Tashjian).
For now the two share an itinerant, impecunious existence — eating expired sandwiches and sleeping in laundromats or sublet airless cupboards. Through the many adversities, humiliations and dispiriting setbacks, Costello remains resilient, wry, and protective of Iris, who’s expected to do her homework even if it’s in a broken-into car. It’s only around her oldest friend, Selby (Jack Farthing), that Costello comes unstuck.
Despite offering money, a home and co-parenting support, Selby — part Bertie Wooster, part The Joker — is also an incorrigible narcissist, as cruel to Costello as he is devoted. One fight (of many) that they have when Costello and Iris come to live with him in his country mansion is a raw, wrenching scene. “It’s completely normal to hate the people you love,” he tells her later, sorrow laced with irony.
But if much of the bleakness leads to a dark punchline, themes of trauma and abuse come with little relief. Despite the punchy sub-30 minute episodes, Rain Dogs is often a hard watch, and where some will see a rough beauty, others will just find misery. How fitting for a show named after a Tom Waits record.
★★★★☆
On BBC1 from April 4 at 10.40pm and on iPlayer thereafter; on HBO Max in the US
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