Unless you were there, you'll never know the terror – and the unexpected exhilaration – of the emerging Troubles in Belfast in the early 1970s - the attacks, the resistance, and the hard choices circumstances forced you to make between pacifism and warfare.
Few dramas tell that story with the energy and precision of “Say Nothing,” the accomplished new drama series by "Derry Girls" director Michael Lennox which premieres on Hulu on Thursday, November 14.
Opening with a later-in-life interview with IRA member Dolours Price, we cut back to her earliest days as a Republican activist in an erupting but undeclared civil war and her fateful decision – along with her sister Marian - to become involved.
What you might not expect is all the laughs. The script, as they say in Belfast parlance, is a cracker. Writer Josh Zetumer has adapted the book by Patrick Radden Keefe with such brio that the whole era comes to blazing life from the first frame.
It's rare to find yourself in the hands of a group of master storytellers but that's what happens from the start of this brilliant new series. We watch as young Dolores - who is not just portrayed but brought to rich life by actress Lola Petticrew – finds herself pulled away from a university course in Dublin to fight back against loyalist pogroms in Belfast.
Her sister Marian, played by equally gifted Hazel Doupe, is screamingly funny as the quieter but surprisingly militant sister Marian. Scenes where the pair dress as nuns to “liberate” cash from a Northern Bank in support of the IRA have a "Dog Day Afternoon" lightness of touch that - just like that legendary film - belies the true danger for all involved.
What I'm saying is that "Say Nothing" challenges us with the sometimes unsettling questions, 'What does it mean to live your principles? How far would you go? What would you be willing to do?'
“I think that people may come away from the series with mixed feelings about some of the characters and, in fact, I hope that they do,” series main writer Joshua Zetumner tells IrishCentral.
“Whether or not an audience supports the actions of some of the characters like the Price sisters, I hope they come away with a question like which is what does it mean to really live your beliefs?
“I think today it's so easy to Tweet, it's easy to go on Instagram and say you support any number of causes, but what does it mean to really internalize that cause and live your values day to day?
"And what is the cost of holding true to those ideals like both for the individual and for society at large?”
"Say Nothing" debuts on Hulu on Thursday, November 14.
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