This is so unremittingly awful as to insult our intelligence - improbable story developments, flat, unbelievable characters. Sarah Lancashire is wasted in this drivel. So far we've seen a cursing, skateboarding Christian minister who goes to a strange town and becomes the first person to stand up in an AA meeting and out himself an alcoholic before the meeting starts, just as a device to surprise Esther and us. Then there's the illegal open air cremation with the full cooperation of a firm of funeral directors. The mawkish presentation of dialogue is embarrassing to watch - the ensemble sentence used by half the choir in owning up to gossiping against the one-legged woman, is an exercise in manipulative awfulness. I wont even start on the caricature dreadfulness of the Tonks characters and the silly woman who for no discernible reason follows them around, or the unsubtly of the manoeuvrer's of the blonde woman who collared Esther's husband. It has reached the point where you don't give a fig who wins the choir, or which bloke Esther goes off with (probably the curate) I gave this two out of ten - one for Sarah Lancashire's bravery in the face of such an appalling offering, and one for some of the singing.
Review of All the Small Things
