Fair City

Look upon the face of pure evil.

Had a chance viewing of RTE’s daily cringe fest ‘Fair City’. They’ve only gone and written the devil incarnate into the script. Susanne (she’s the one who looks as miserable as a hanging platform left out in a bad rainstorm) has flipped. The sheer malevolence of her character now so badly tips the balance of the show it’s like a roll call in a nursery that consists of Sean, Sarah, Johnny, Ruth, Joseph Fritzel, Graham, Ron and so on. Every thing else has been relegated to mere sideshow while a titanic flame breathing Susanne rampages through Carrickstown giving any husband within range a wild beating. Her character now embodies every aspect of some of the worst psychopaths ever to grace the planet. To look into Susanne’s eyes is to gaze into two infinite voids of swirling malice. Did Fair City get a new tear away rogue screenwriter? A writer who cares not for conventional characters and bland plotlines, but one who swaggers into the workplace with unkempt hair and a bad attitude armed with a taste only for harrowing trauma. For a show that usually appears under the definition of bland in the dictionary, it now plays home to this one-woman wave of husband bashing not seen on Irish television before. Forgiving the unbalancing of the show, it is a step in the right direction, which also sheds some light on a much-ignored side of life for some men. For this Fair City deserves some applause. Maybe now we can have another titanic rampaging character. But what ignored facet of daily life would they bring to light? Erectile dysfunction? Snow Blindness in Cats? And maybe instead of breathing flame like Susanne, they could have radioactive breath and laser vision this time. A shoddy plotline involving Sellafield might sort that.