The Cutprice Guignol

My favourite Carol Ann Duffy poem (I know, bear with me for a minute) is A Clear Note – if you haven’t read it, I would thoroughly recommend it, whether or not you’re usually a poetry reader. It’s a poem told from the point of view of three different generations of women – grandmother, mother, and daughter – and the interlocking of their mutual experiences, how they feed into and diverge from each other. It’s a brilliant bit of writing, and it’s one that I come back to a lot; there’s something about that exploration of women’s generational experience, their parallels and their differences, that’s so fascinating to me, and something I’m always hungry for in other media I consume.

Which brings me to Alma’s Not Normal, Sophie Willan’s sensationally fucking brilliant 2021 semi-autobiographical TV show. Before I get into the juicy stuff, I’ve just got to take a moment to recommend it right here up top – it’s such a brilliant piece of television, witty and idiosyncratic and unique, taking on everything from the titular abnormal Alma’s sex work career, her experience in foster care, and her sexuality and relationships. I truly cannot overstate how good it is to see women telling their own stories, and the way that Alma’s Not Normal captures those little details of British womanhood is just exquisite. Also, and this is apropos of not much, but Jayde Adams as Leanne has my whole, entire heart. She’s just so good.

But, for me, the most impressive thing the show does comes in the handling of the relationships between three generation’s of Alma’s family: her grandmother Joan (British TV icon Lorraine Ashbourne, always with a fag in hand), her mother Lin (a phenomenal Siobhan Finneran) and Alma herself (Willan). Lin, a woman suffering from drug-induced psychosis, is released from her section over the course of the show and moves back in with Joan, who spent some time as Alma’s primary carer during her mother’s addiction, and the dynamics that rise from these three being in direct contact again are genuinely fascinating.

The final episode of the first season explores the parallels between Joan and Lin’s lives – both seeking freedom from the oppressive poverty and gender roles placed on them by their class and sex, and both ending up pregnant and having a daughter at the expense of other dreams they wanted to pursue. And what it creates is a messy, intricate set of relationships, where grief and anger and resentment and blame and guilt all pile up on top of the ever-complex mother-daughter relationship.

There’s a real nuance to Willan’s writing that doesn’t place total blame or offer total redemption to Alma, Joan, or Lin; Joan’s resentment towards Lin and emotional reticence makes sense in the context of her life, but it doesn’t undo the brand of harm it left on the following generations of women in her family. Lin is a victim of her addiction and the mental health issues caused by it, but the damage her pursuit of drugs and alcohol does to Alma and Joan is palpable. Alma wants to break free, but the lure of repeating the same cycle (or at least some aspects of it) that trapped her mother and grandmother is familiar, if not comforting. These are women who have seen the mistakes made by the other members of their family, recognised at least some of them for what they are, and yet been unable to break that cycle, leaving them frustrated and trapped in some version of the life that has already been lived.

It’s a brilliant, rich, and beautifully-realized piece of storytelling, one where Willan, like Carol Ann Duffy, compassionately explores the divergences and parallels of generations of women – how misogyny, addiction, trauma, and mental illness come together to create a toxic cycle and complicated, difficult, rewarding, and frustrating relationships between these women.

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