"Presumably heeding Woody Allen's advice that if you're going to steal, steal from the best, writer-director John Butler's six-part comedy-drama These Sacred Vows (RTÉ One, Sunday, February 1; first two episodes on RTÉ Player) cheekily opens in exactly the same way. Here, the dead man is a priest called Fr Vincent (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and the swimming pool is not in Hollywood, but in a Tenerife holiday resort improbably called El Viejo Triangulo (The Old Triangle)."
"The conceit of having the dead man tell his story from beyond the grave is quickly dropped, however, in favour of a conventional flashback to a week earlier, when Vincent arrived. Whatever about the Sunset Boulevard allusion, These Sacred Vows seems to be pitching itself as a sort of cheap package holiday version of The White Lotus. There's a dead body, a mystery and a gallery of characters, each of whom has a dark secret."
"The pair are cardboard-thin caricatures of a well-off, middle-class Dublin couple. Jerry is a garrulous, golf-playing loudmouth; Sandra is a former artist who sacrificed her own career dreams to be a dutiful wife and mother - and makes a point of reminding her husband of it. Sandra explains to Vincent that their daughter (who remains unseen in the first two episodes) doesn't want a traditional church wedding because she's religious, she just wants to ensure her children will be guaranteed places in a Catholic school."
These Sacred Vows is a six-part comedy-drama that opens with a dead priest, Fr Vincent, by a swimming pool at a Tenerife resort named El Viejo Triangulo, before shifting to a flashback of the week leading up to his arrival. The series lifts the dead-man conceit and frames itself as a package-holiday take on prestige resort mysteries, featuring a dead body, a central mystery and multiple characters with dark secrets. Fr Vincent is invited by old friends Jerry and Sandra to officiate their eldest daughter's wedding. Jerry and Sandra are portrayed as well-off, middle-class Dublin caricatures; Sandra is shown as a former artist who sacrificed her career. The daughter's rejection of a traditional church wedding is explained as a way to secure Catholic school places for her children.
Read at Irish Independent
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