Bad Sisters: Sharon Horgan’s brilliant new Apple black comedy

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REVIEW: He might be their sister Grace’s (Anne-Marie Duff) husband, but none of the other four Garvey sisters are grieving the death of John Paul Williams (Netflix’s Dracula Claes Bang).

As Apple TV+’s new black comedy Bad Sisters (which begins streaming on August 19) opens, the quartet all dutifully turn up at his open casket wake and funeral, but only to support their sibling.

“He’s Satan’s problem now,” one remarks, while another notes that she’s dressed him in her pajamas, no doubt to “make eternal damnation more comfortable for him”.

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In flashbacks, we learn how he’d undermine and appal each of them with his inappropriate comments, obnoxious observations and failure to flush the loo, as well as increasingly control Grace’s every move. “She getting quieter and smaller in the hands of that prick – he’s sucking the life out of her,” self-appointed Garvey matriarch Eva (Sharon Horgan) opines.

Orphaned for some time, the quintet had made a vow to look after each other, but prior to John Paul’s death, Grace just wanted them to back off.

“I know he isn’t easy and I know you don’t think he’s a good man, but he’s a good husband and a good father, and he makes me happy. Can you not just let me be happy?

Six months on though and her only concern now is whether she’s made enough sandwiches to appropriately cater for the wake. (“No one RSVPs for a funeral, so how do you know?”)

However, as if the sniping comments from Eva, eye-patched Bibi (Sarah Greene), disapproving Ursula (Eva Birthistle) and massage therapist Becka (Eve Hewson) weren’t enough, an interlocutor has started asking awkward questions. Despite his insistence that he’s making “a courtesy visit to a valued client at a difficult time”, Thomas Claffin (Brian Gleeson) is determined to uncover an insurance fraud.

Shocked at just how much life insurance was recently taken out against John Paul, he just has “a couple of questions” before they can pay out, a situation he tells his half-brother Matthew (Daryl McCormack) he is very keen to avoid, lest it destabilize their business’ own financial position. “Who knows if there is foul play?” he admits, “but if there is, the culprit usually shows up at the funeral.”

Based on the 2012 Belgian series Clan (also known in some countries as The Out-Laws), this 10-parter has made a successful transition to contemporary Ireland. With a tone and style reminiscent of John Michael McDonagh’s magnificent The Guard, Motherland, Shining Vale and Catastrophe writer Horgan’s script makes terrific use of its Emerald Isle backdrop and the truly impressive assembled ensemble.

Perhaps all best known more as dramatic actors – Duff was in Shameless, Greene has featured in Penny Dreadful and Normal People, Birthistle is known for her period drama work and Hewson’s CV includes our own The Luminaries – they all here demonstrate some terrific comedic timing, both separately and as a sometimes hilarious, nonsense, bickering group.

And while Bang delivers another of his charismatically odious males (John Paul is like a British version of The Affair’s self-obsessed Sasha Mann), he’s upstaged by Gleeson’s (brother of Domhnall, son of Brendan) acerbic insurance broker. Whether it’s playfully teasing his pregnant wife about “causing structural damage to the house” if she moves, or ransacking the wake sandwiches on his way out the door, he’s a scene-stealer extraordinaire, in a darkly humorous show that offers just as much intrigue as it does witty one-liners.

Bad Sisters begins streaming on Apple TV+ on August 19.