TV Review: Requiem (BBC 2018)

Requiem was a surprise series that sneaked up on me. We’d just finished watching something else and it was on half way through. As nobody seemed as intrigued as me I ended up binge watching it on my own. I went into watching it blind so to speak. I hadn’t read any blurb. It starts with a talented musician Matilda. Her mother suddenly commits suicide and right from the beginning we know something supernatural is going on, with whispers and glimpses in mirrors. Matilda finds a box on her mothers bed full of newspaper cuttings concerning a little girl who went missing. She is convinced that something about this will tell her more about why her mother killed herself and as the story unfolds she thinks it’s going to tell her secrets about herself. She travels with her friend, Hal to a small Welsh village to find answers. By doing this she stirs up old emotions, and ghosts. I really don’t want to give spoilers away. The story is about lost children, magic and John Dee. The atmosphere puts me very much in mind of “The Watcher in the Woods” if you can remember than oldie from Disney in the 1980s. The music and atmosphere, the woods and the secrets make it for me. It evokes wicker man type claustrophobia (obviously not as good as the wicker man, as my all time favourite that will never happen). If you’ve ever read Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins series, it reminds me somewhat of those books, the welsh bounder town with secrets and old magic.

There are critics on Amazon reviews mentioning plot holes but as I can think of reasons for the plot holes I feel I can debunk them. Matilda’s character at times can be quite challenging to like but at the same time mesmerizing to watch. I want to give this a 8/10. I thought it was original, atmospheric and intriguing. I was expecting a ghost story but it was much more that. It was open for a second series and I do hope they make one!