Isolation Stories: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Tuesday 12 May 2020, 10:01

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Isolation Stories, the new drama from ITV about the struggles of life in lockdown.

It stars Sheridan Smith, Robert Glenister, Eddie Marsden and Angela Griffin.

All episodes, plus a 'making of' special, are available on ITV Hub.

Have you watched it? What did you think? Leave your comments below...

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(Photo: ITV)

Scott says: “You end up thinking more about how they’ve been able to pull off the show than the drama itself"

"It has been a real feat in how they put the show together. They filmed it themselves, they had cameras sterilised first by crews at their front doors, they’ve had actor's kids taking up roles in each episode too…

"There’s another episode called ‘Isolation Stories: Behind the Scenes’, where you see the directors on Zoom telling the actors what to do step by step. It must have been so disorientating for everybody involved. But the consequence of that is that you end up thinking more about how they’ve been able to pull off the show rather than the show and the plot and the drama itself.

"There’s one episode about a father and son, and they timed it so that at the end of the episode it was the ‘Clap for Carers’ moment. You could hear the applause on the street and found yourself trying to imagine them filming a shot knowing they had to finish it perfectly on time to coincide with their entire street.

"It will be interesting once dramas go back to a set and a stage of normality. Drama has been the hardest hit of any type of TV because of the amount of people who are needed on set and the complexity of make up, lighting and sound in an intimate environment. I think we’re going to see a lot of creativity, maybe not on this level where the actors are given the cameras themselves and told how to do it, but I think you’ll see a lot of innovation about how things could be done with less people.

"I’m reluctantly going to say it’s not a Must Watch, but huge credit given to everyone who was able to pull this off."

(Photo: ITV)

Hayley says: “It feels real and meaningful"

"They are 15 minutes long or less: the dream runtime. The Eddie Marsan episode is amazing; I could watch him do anything which is just as well because in this episode he does a lot of the hoovering, just like the rest of us. His episode has comedy, pathos, brilliant acting, it’s unpredictable, it’s got interesting character development and it reached a satisfying end in 13 minutes.

"In the first episode, Sheridan Smith is heavily pregnant and in lockdown on her own. This episode in particular highlighted two things I’ve been thinking about in lockdown. One, that video calls have made some people feel more alone than they felt before, because they’re being beamed into a busy household and when it ends they’re alone again. It’s almost worse than having no call at all — it highlights the loneliness and makes it more acute. The other thing is that it focuses on the absolute terror of being pregnant during this.

"I’ve got a friend who gave birth a couple of weeks back, but the lead up was so scary because it was March and April and no one knew what the hospitals would have been like, if her boyfriend would have been allowed in the room, or if she would have to be all alone while giving birth. Pregnancy is a lonely thing to do by yourself at the best of times and this managed to capture that extra fear that the pandemic has put on us. All of this makes it sound like it’s not a fun time — and I don’t think it is a fun time — but it feels like a real and a meaningful story that couldn’t have happened without the pandemic. It captures this moment so perfectly and in such a short runtime.

"It is a Must Watch. It’s interesting to think about how it’s done, too: you realise what an amazing feat it is.”