Dennis Kelly’s dark, brilliant two-hander won’t be to everyone’s tastes – but if you get onboard, it is a miraculous compression of the past year
The Covid documentaries have been coming thick and fast. We have had films recorded in real time from doctors. We have had thoughtful overviews that piece together our and other countries’ responses with the benefit of hindsight. Earlier this week, we had a Horizon special on the development of the vaccines that may, without hyperbole, save the world.
Art, however, takes longer. The factual programming has been, almost without exception, terrifically good: sober, meticulous, grappling with vast amounts of data and dramatic footage and wrestling it into comprehensible, valuable forms for an exhausted, bewildered and lay audience. It has informed us, brilliantly. But it is art, the stories we tell ourselves about extraordinary and frequently traumatic experiences, that helps us come to terms with them. Dennis Kelly’s Together (BBC Two) may be the first major work for a mass audience that succeeds in this task.
