Modern dating is fun but ‘may destroy you’

Normal People was one of the BBC’s most talked-about dramas in years – and not just because a lot of viewers weren’t getting out much and were desperate to have something to chat about other than the lockdown.

So, the latest Monday night drama series is going to have its work cut out hooking critics and audiences alike to the same extent, but if anyone can do it, Michaela Coel can.

She’s the writer and actress (and singer, songwriter and poet) behind Chewing Gum, the acclaimed E4 sitcom which won her a Baftas awards as Best Female Performance in a Comedy Programme and Breakthrough Talent. Since then, she’s gone on to appear in Black Mirror and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and in 2018 took the lead role in the drama series Black Earth Rising.

And now Michaela has returned with another series she created and stars in (she also executive produced and co-directed it, just for good measure), the strikingly titled I May Destroy You.

The drama also takes what we’re promised is a frank and provocative look at modern dating and relationships, and the issue of consent.

The team at production company Various Artists Limited say: “The characters Michaela has created in I May Destroy You are complicated and conflicted. They are typical young men and women of metropolitan London, who party, take drugs, worry about work, worry about each other. We see their mistakes and misunderstandings, their strengths, and weaknesses.”

They add: “I May Destroy You takes a long, hard look at some uncomfortable topics. But, like Michaela – and like life – it can also be very funny, flipping from darkness to comedy and back again.

Although it started as a drama about consent, it has bloomed into a story about the narratives we write for ourselves, the narrative that life writes for us, and how, sometimes, we can bring both together.”

Coel plays the central character, Arabella Essiuedu, who finds success when a piece of her writing garners acclaim online. Suddenly, she’s being called the voice of a generation, with a book deal and an agent, but also a lot of pressure.

The strain is starting to show as, following a visit to her long-distance boyfriend in Italy (although he’s not keen on labelling their relationship) she heads back to London, ready to lie to her agent that the first draft of her book is nearly finished.

Arabella plans to work through the night on it, but when her friend Simon and his girlfriend Kat ask her to come out with them, she eventually succumbs to temptation.

It all starts well as they head to a hip-hop karaoke bar and then a nightclub. But the evening takes a weird turn and the next day, the writer finds herself struggling to piece together exactly what happened – or what one disturbing image of the night before means.

If you’re already hooked, the second episode airs tomorrow.

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