Pistol-packer

• Published date: 02 April 2024
• Publication title: Signal

GOD knows, after the final triumphant, harrowing series of Happy Valley last year, writer/producer Sally Wainwright has earned the right to kick back and relax a bit. Renegade Nell is the result. Seemingly designed for a younger audience than her usual fare, this is a fun, slightly odd, definitely slighter piece of work that channels the spirit of perhaps her second-most famous work, Gentleman Jack, and adds a supernatural twist to it

This time we are in the 18th century and, unusually, down south. Our heroine is Nell Jackson — Louisa Harland, who made her name as the giddy Orla in Derry Girls, and could not be more brilliant here in a wholly different part. She returns to her native village of Tottenham five years after she was thought to have been...