My wife and I came to this Netflix series on the strong recommendation of my sister, although I was already aware of the vibe surrounding it before we started our viewing. Neither of us had read the source novel beforehand. I'm pleased to say it lived up to expectations with its novel narrative accomplishing the tricky task of making chess seem exciting.

I occasionally play chess for fun although I haven't done so for a long time, however you don't need to be an expert in the game to get caught up in the action, indeed you'd have to have a chess grandmaster's photographic memory anyway to have the time to study the boards of the many, many games played and fleetingly displayed during the six episodes of its run.

The secret of its success lies in its depiction of the central character, Anya Taylor-Joy's precocious orphan Beth Harmon who we initially encounter at the Lexington Orphanage where she meets her lifetime friend, rebellious black fellow-orphan Jolene, played by Moses Ingram. It's there that she begins her addiction to medication and probably most importantly, is schooled in the arcane art of playing chess by the quiet-spoken old janitor who spends his off-duty time setting up chess matches with her in his basement office and recognises her gift for the game. Later, after some years, Beth is adopted as a teenager by a middle-aged couple, principally to be a companion to the wife as her cold, reluctant husband works away most of the time.

I immediately liked that the show subverted my expectations of plot cliches by refusing to bend to familiar themes of physical abuse at the orphanage or sexual abuse in her new home. Instead the series becomes an odyssey for Beth as she grows through her teenage years, struggling as she does so with addictions to medication and alcohol as well as relationships while she voraciously develops her talent for chess, gradually rising through the ranks at state, national and finally international level, culminating in a winner-take-all match in Russia against her inscrutable Russian grand-master opponent.

Of course it's a coming-of-age story too with many quirks along the way for Beth, concerning amongst other things her search for love on her terms, her battles against her own demons going back in time to her natural father's abandonment of her and her troubled natural mother's suicide of which she had a literally close-up view and her growing pains as she plots her course in life initially with the help of her piano-playing adopted mother with whom she forms a manager-client business partnership and in time a strong personal bond.

Set in the 60's, it doesn't hit you over the head with cultural or social reference points, so you won't see references to Kennedy, the Beatles, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War (the draft seemed to have missed all the aspiring young male chess players in the country) or even the moon landing. Perhaps their exclusion reflects the cloistered, esoteric world of a chess devotee or maybe it was just a deliberately offbeat personal choice by the director, but nevertheless soundtrack songs like the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" and in particular a crazy little-known, certainly to me, French beat number "Tut Tut Tut Tut" by Gillian Hills added further spice and had me hitting them up on my stream provider of choice directly afterwards. Watching it, I couldn't help but wondering if aspects of Beth's story were inspired by the early life and times of the young maverick American genius player Bobby Fischer who also first came to prominence in the 60's before he went a bit crazy in later life.

Central to the show's success is the remarkable central performance by Taylor-Joy. There are so many head-on shots of her Sphinx-like face, with her pixie-like red-hair, cast-down eyes and perfect Cupid's bow mouth, deflecting the curiosity of her opponents but inviting the intrigue of the young men (and old) who cross her path. I felt too that the three young men who guide her most in her determination to succeed at age only 20 were well selected and portrayed by the actors concerned. Likewise the depictions of her hipster soul-sister friend who comes back into her life at a crucial juncture, her mother as a positive Joan Crawford Mommie Dear rather than crazed Mommie Dearest influence, the inscrutable Russian World Champion she takes on at the climactic Russian Open Championship and the lowly orphanage caretaker who started her on her path.

Beautifully set-designed, imaginatively directed without gratuitous nudity or sex-scenes, especially the device of Carmen's looking up to the ceiling to play out her games in monumental 3D chess-pieces and extremely capably acted by its ensemble cast, this was an intelligent, classy production I'd recommend anyone to watch.