Beyond The TARDIS There She Goes by DJ Forrest

Broadcast BBC4 October 16th 2018

Written by Shaun Pye

Starring David Tennant, Jessica Hynes,

Edan Hayhurst and Miley Locke.

“Very few words and moments of explosive violence. Very much like Jason Bourne.”

There She Goes, is a comedy drama series about a family of four, where the youngest child, Rosie, age nine, suffers from a chromosomal disorder. Rosie demonstrates the mind of a toddler and pushes both her parents to almost breaking point.

The drama series is based upon actor and writer Shaun Pye’s experiences of living with his mentally disabled daughter who was born in 2006 with the same disorder.

Rosie played by Miley Locke, is a bit of a handful and that’s putting it mildly. She runs rings around her parents, and puts them through the ringer several times, costing hundreds of pounds worth of soggy damage, when she locates electronic devices and introduces them to hot soapy bubbles. With the mind of a very young child, enjoying the attention when Mummy and Daddy raise their voices, pull faces of dissatisfaction at her, only spurs her on. When Simon threatens to smack the hippo toy because he can’t smack his own daughter, it only incites Rosie to continue destroying her bedroom wall.

Watching this comedy drama unfold, I have every sympathy for the mother of the story but perhaps not as much sympathy for the father – although in the first episode I did understand where he was coming from, but it still didn’t excuse his behaviour when his wife really needed him.

I’ve watched a lot of dramas and films involving David Tennant, and although in Secret Smile and Jessica Jones, where you loved to hate him, but the role was to play a devious evil character. Simon on the other hand, isn’t a bad person. He’s a bit of a dick, a drunken arsehole, who drowns all his problems with Rosie in a bottle of red wine and avoids much of the interaction so long as he can complete his crossword. How his wife hasn’t lamped him one, left him or buried him under the patio yet, I really don’t know.

Jessica Hynes, plays Emily, a mum who had a wonderful first birth with son Ben, struggles to bond with Rosie as a baby. Unable to breast feed her daughter, finds it frustrating when her child refuses to drink and to eat and is barely taking care of herself in the early days; is fighting these battles on her own, while husband Simon is drinking in pubs when he should be working, and returns home late, hammered demanding some attention from his wife, who is absolutely shattered from looking after their mentally disabled daughter. It’s almost as if Simon doesn’t care nor understand the demands that Rosie puts upon them.

Throughout the first series, the story jumps back and forth from 2006 to nine years later, picking up on how far the family have come with Rosie since the early days. Emily has less support from Simon in the early days and as the years progress, he still continues to drink his bottles of wine, socialise in bars without his wife, and still comes home relatively late, to avoid much contact with his daughter, who although he did bond with when she was a baby, finds it increasingly difficult to properly bond with her as she physically grows up.

Instead of the usual heart-breaking dramas we’ve come to expect, Shaun Pye turns this into a comedy, picking up on the light hearted moments in the family life, where the family quote Lord of the Rings to describe days and moments with their daughter, which makes for some witty dialogue between the family, and raised brows by those not in on the jokes. If you’re not a fan of Lord of the Rings, or indeed sci fi in general these jokes are wasted on you.

I really hope there’s a second series of this drama as I’ve loved every half hour episode, although I do hope that the production team introduce Tennant to a razor as I much prefer him with a tidier five o’clock shadow rather than the full-on facial growth that makes him look like he’s been working all the hours and not slept for 42 hours.