The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureShowsBBC iPlayer

Trigonometry

Trigonometry | Show review
3 May 2020
Grace Walsh
Avatar
Grace Walsh
3 May 2020

Movie and show review

Grace Walsh

Trigonometry

★★★★★

Release date

15th March 2020

Platform

BBC iPlayer

Links

Website

With Normal People absorbing much of our attention over the last week, we’ve been in danger of missing out on one of the BBC’s newly released hidden gems. Trigonometry is an eight-part series on BBC Two about three 30-somethings: Gemma,  Kieran and Ray. Gemma and Kieran are trying to make ends meet – with Gemma’s café failing to get off the ground and Kieran’s work as a paramedic putting him in the firing line one too many times – so they rent out their spare bedroom. Ray is their lodger, who takes the room after leaving her ill-fated career as a professional synchronised swimmer.

Although they refuse to admit it to themselves or each other at first, Gemma and Kieran’s attraction to Ray is instantaneous. She’s barely moved a box into the flat before her landlords are accusing each other of being attracted to her. For Ray, the realisation takes a little longer and, in the end, it’s an unsubtle comment from a drag queen that forces her to recognise her own feelings for the couple.

Trigonometry doesn’t represent a polyamorous relationship in a way we haven’t seen before – it’s two women and a man, after all – but it at least offers a more realistic approach. Neither Gemma or Kieran are white, and they don’t all live in a leafy suburb where their only issue is the nosy neighbours. Together, the three face up to the pressures of burgeoning gentrification, biphobia, mental health issues and pressures from family that threaten the balance of their relationship. If your only viewpoint on polyamory comes from shows like Netflix’s You, Me, Her, this will be a refreshing watch, as the characters dispel the myth that polyamory is a radical and subversive act, only for middle-class white couples to indulge in when their marriages become stale.

The entire series is shot through a grainy lens, giving it a quality that transports us back to the early 2000s. Why? Who knows, but it creates a comforting, nostalgic feel that makes it even easier for us to fall in love with this thruple.  

BBC Two’s Trigonometry is undoubtedly the dark horse of lockdown television, offering up a captivating distraction from the real world while at the same time not being too far removed from it.

★★★★★

Grace Walsh

Trigonometry is available to view on BBC iPlayer.

Watch the trailer for Trigonometry here:

Related Itemsreview

More in Shows

Judas and the Black Messiah

★★★★★
James Humphrey
Read More

Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell

★★★★★
Jake Cudsi
Read More

The United States Vs Billie Holiday

★★★★★
BP Flanagan
Read More

Blush: An interview with director Debra Eisenstadt

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

Baby Done: An interview with lead actor Rose Matafeo

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

The Sinners

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

What Lies Below

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

Wrong Turn

★★★★★
Musanna Ahmed
Read More

Ginny & Georgia

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Grace Walsh

Trigonometry

★★★★★

Release date

15th March 2020

Platform

BBC iPlayer

Links

Website

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Smith & Burrows – Only Smith & Burrows Is Good Enough
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Creation Stories
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Gatsby at Cadogan Hall: An interview with Jodie Steele and Ross William Wild
    Theatre
  • Wrong Turn
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Ginny & Georgia
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Toll
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • The Mauritanian
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • My Favourite War
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • In the Shadows
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Laura Mvula – Under a Pink Moon
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • My Favourite War
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Typical at Soho Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Detroit Stories – Alice Cooper
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Minari
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • West End Musical Drive In Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Operation Elsewhere at Big Telly Theatre Online | Theatre review
Cowboys, Asia and Materna come out on top at Tribeca Film Festival 2020