Television is flirting with sea themes at the moment, as evidenced by BBC One’s recent submarine drama Vigil, but the true parallels here are with the magnificent first season of The Terror, BBC Two’s stark Arctic tale starring Jared Harris, where the threat was partly supernatural.

(Talk about vegan-baiting TV the BBC can expect complaints.) Still, Haigh’s drama is compelling viewing, and in Drax it has a true demon: bulked-up, bedraggled, pitiless, with Farrell (his first television role since True Detective in 2015) abandoning his preternaturally boyish charm to convincingly embody guttural, unwashed evil bobbing in a soul-free zone. In the event, seals get whacked before the whales their bloody slaughter towards the end of the opening episode, with pickaxes and clubs, is all the more repellent because it is almost operatically exultant. Despite the grimness, The North Water is thrilling and beautiful, especially when depicting the frozen wastes of the Arctic, where it was partly filmed, and where the ship, the Volunteer, bumps against ice that sprinkles across inky water like a deadly white jigsaw. Thus, The North Water, which first aired on the US streaming channel AMC, sets out its stall as an essay on brutal masculinism under pressure, maritime-style.Įlsewhere, ship’s doctor Sumner (O’Connell) is fleeing from disgrace and mired in addiction, while Stephen Graham’s corrupt captain is colluding in a deathly insurance fraud with the shipowner (a subtly vicious Tom Courtenay). Drax doesn’t go so far as to wipe himself down on an eiderdown, but you get the drift that the encounter isn’t romantic. In the opening scene, Farrell’s character, Drax, is heard grunting during intercourse with a faceless woman. Which makes sense – in five parts, written and directed by Andrew Haigh ( 45 Years Looking), based on the 2016 book by Ian McGuire, it’s the tale of a 19th-century Yorkshire whaling expedition in the Arctic not a setup that screams “strong feminine presence”.

The north water book review