2024 British dystopian crime drama
Curfew is a British crime drama television series for Paramount+ UK &amp; Ireland. It is an adaptation of the novel "After Dark" by Jayne Cowie.
Premise.
Set in a society where men are restricted by a curfew from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. to prioritize women's safety, the murder of a woman outside the Women's Safety Centre shocks the community. Veteran police officer Pamela Green (Sarah Parish) suspects that a man is responsible for the crime, despite the curfew - which requires all men to be tagged and monitored during restricted hours. Partnering with her new colleague Eddie (Mitchell Robertson), Pamela faces skepticism from both the public and her superiors, who believe the curfew system makes it impossible for a man to be involved. As the investigation unfolds, Pamela must confront her own biases and navigate political pressure while seeking the truth behind the murder.
Production.
The series was produced by Vertigo Films in association with Evolutionary Films, with Federation Studios distributing. John Adams is the producer, Joasia Goldyn is the director, whilst Lydia Yeoman is lead writer alongside Jess Green and Sumerah Srivastav. Allan Niblo, Jane Moore and Nathalie Peter-Contesse are executive producers on the series for Vertigo Films. It is an adaptation of the 2022 novel "After Dark" by Jayne Cowie. Filming was underway in early 2024 in London.
The cast is led by Sarah Parish and Mandip Gill and also includes Mitchell Robertson and Alexandra Burke. In April 2024, Anita Dobson, Lucy Benjamin, Bobby Brazier and Larry Lamb joined the cast.
Release.
The series premiered on 10 October 2024.
Reception.
Writing in the "Guardian", Lucy Mangan gave the series three stars out of five, saying that it was "decent thriller fare" but its worldbuilding was "disappointingly sketchy" and left "far too many unanswered questions", including that of male violence committed during daytime hours or in a domestic setting.
"The Daily Telegraph"'s Anita Singh gave the series two stars out of five, with much of the review being dedicated to what she saw as the series' issues with worldbuilding and thus with believability.
Ed Power of the "Irish Times" described the series as "a passable shoestring thriller hobbled by a lot of weird gender politics." Power queried the lack of any reference to daytime or domestic violence, and also noted the "superhuman levels of suspension of disbelief" needed to accept that men were "such a danger to society that they have to be put under house arrest each sundown" while simultaneously "the patriarchy has apparently been subjugated to the point where legislators can force men to remain indoors", but ultimately he found that it was "still refreshing to see a series use speculative fiction to explore issues around everyday misogyny" and the question of women's nighttime safety.
Reviewing the series for the "i", Tilly Pearce gave the series three stars out of five, saying that it "seems somewhat aware of its faults and the barmy premise ends up working better than it should", but that while it had "huge potential to say something important about violence against women and girls [...] its determination to wedge in the male point of view whataboutery" meant that "any feminist notions are killed off".
Digital Spy's Jess Bacon said that while the series offered "some contrived reflections and generalisations on femicide, murder and women's safety" it also offered "some of the boldest statements about the epidemic of violence against women."
References.
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Footnotes.
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