Bodkin review: Netflix has a winner on its hands with this splendid Irish comedy-thriller

It’s created by a British writer, Jez Scharf. The writing and directing teams are made up of British, American, Irish and Australian talent. The series is produced by the Obamas’ company Higher Ground, making its first foray into scripted television.

We know from bitter experience what the result can be when Netflix rubs up against rural Ireland: dross like Irish Wish. At first sight, Bodkin looks like it might be about to plummet into the same dark pit of paddywhackery.

It’s set in a West Cork coastal town with a funny-sounding name. The inhabitants come across as the usual collection of colourful, folksy eccentrics and oddballs.

Bodkin Netflix Official Trailer

If this isn’t enough to set your Oirish bullshit-detecting antennae twitching, then the fact that the animated opening titles feature a pint of Guinness, a nun and a St Brigid’s Cross should be.

Don’t run away, because Bodkin is not what you might have feared. It’s clever, funny and properly gripping stuff

But wait — don’t run away, because Bodkin is not what you might have feared. It’s clever, funny and properly gripping stuff: a deliciously offbeat concoction of the (intentionally) silly and the sinister that delights in setting up more shamrock-laden clichés than you can shake a shillelagh at and then gleefully shredding them.

Forget Ballykissangel. If the town of Bodkin were to be twinned with anywhere, the obvious contender would be Royston Vasey from The League of Gentlemen.

Twenty-five years ago, three strangers went missing at the same time during the Samhain festival. With this year’s event about to get underway, a motley team of true-crime podcasters descend on the town, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Well, one of them is determined to, anyway. This is Chicago native Gilbert, played by Saturday Night Live alumnus and Nebraska star Will Forte.

Gilbert is regarded as something of a podcasting legend. The reality, however, is rather sadder. His reputation rests on one podcast from a few years ago, which was a huge success, but has had a deep and lasting negative impact on his marriage.

In an effort to repeat his early triumph, he’s got himself into serious debt. He desperately needs his Bodkin podcast to be a hit.

Gilbert is accompanied by his naive British researcher Emmy (Robyn Cara), who looks up to him as a hero. The third member of the team, and a reluctant one, is Dove (Siobhán Cullen from Obituary and The Dry — a series which shares several cast members with Bodkin).

Dove is a Dublin-born investigative journalist with The Guardian in London, which has a stake in Gilbert’s podcast. Her most recent story, involving a government whistleblower, turned into a disaster when the whistleblower’s name was leaked, leading him to hang himself.

Her editor has packed her off to Bodkin to keep her out of the way — and possibly out of jail for breaching the Official Secrets Act.

It’s safe to say it’s the last place Dove, who couldn’t be any more spiky if she wore a coat made from hedgehog pelts, wants to be.

“True-crime podcasting isn’t journalism, it’s necrophilia,” she says.

She resents being stuck with a chirpy, wide-eyed Yank like gullible Gilbert, who “thinks rural Ireland is Disneyland” and believes any old tourist-trapping guff the locals pitch him.

Gradually, however, this unlikely trio coalesce as they begin to suspect dark deeds are afoot in Bodkin. There are hints of folk horror and the supernatural (Dove is being stalked by a wolf nobody else appears to see), as well some wonderfully quirky humour, such as the three oulfellas arguing the merits of The Rolling Stones versus Fleetwood Mac.

The splendid Irish cast includes David Wilmot as the shady Seamus, who may or may not be a former terrorist gunrunner known as “The Badger”, The Young Offenders’ Chris Walley as the trio’s dodgy driver Seán, who claims he was adopted from a Romanian orphanage, and Fionnula Flanagan as the leader of a desanctified order of nuns who run yoga classes at their island retreat.

I’m not a natural binge-watcher, but I greedily ate my way through the first four episodes in one sitting and loved it. I suspect Netflix has a winner on its hands with this one.