Coma review: Gallons of plonk… that’s one way to get through this predictable thriller! writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Coma

Judgement:

Nothing defines your social status more clearly than the way you enjoy a bottle of wine after dinner.

Maybe you order a bottle of Argentine Malbec, ‘the good stuff’, for a personal chat with a friend at a wine bar.

Or maybe you just pick up a liter of Buckfast from the off-licence, drink it with your teenage friends at a play park and leave broken glass everywhere.

If you’re the troubled hero of a domestic thriller, you might buy a cheap red and a cheaper white at the supermarket, down them both while gossiping and eating fish fingers with your partner, and then retire upstairs for some hazy fuss.

That’s what Simon Henderson and his wife Beth (Jason Watkins and Claire Skinner) do, to escape their daily stresses in the four-part domestic thriller Coma (Chapter 5).

She’s a nurse, he’s just been fired from his sales job, the mortgage is past due and their suburb is being terrorized by a gang of hoodies – the gang from the park.

Simon has had a few run-ins with the yobbos. He tried to intervene as they assaulted a homeless man.

Later, one of them, a skinny boy named Jordan, began taunting him, showing up at his door and scaring his young daughter.

When Jordan’s threats become nasty, Simon lashes out, landing a blow that leaves the boy in a coma.

Hence the title, in case you thought it was a reference to Coma Vella, a Spanish vino that’s way out of Simon’s usual price range.

And the Argie Malbec? That is the preference of Jordan’s father, Paul (Jonas Armstrong), a menacing Scouser who describes himself as a ‘full-time gangster’.

If you drink red wine, Paul advises, choose the expensive stuff; these apparently contain less acid, which means milder hangovers.

Mind you, after half a bottle, Paul sees a guy he doesn’t like and, following him to the gentlemen, he knocks him unconscious. Clearly, a few sips of South America’s finest can bring out someone’s aggressive side too much.

Simon has a few run-ins with the yobbos. He tries to intervene while they are assaulting a homeless man

Paul does not know that Simon has admitted his son to the hospital. Like the police and the local newspaper, he believes the boy was the victim of an unknown assailant – and that the mild-mannered family man saved his life by giving him first aid. Keeping up this appearance makes Simon quite worried.

No one does tender and angsty better than Jason Watkins, and that’s one of the flaws of this series. It feels predictable, a morality play with a cast of stereotypes.

Had Watkins played the vengeful gangster, with Armstrong as the nervous Nelly pushed to his limits, it could have made for an intriguing drama.

The other problem is Beth. Claire Skinner is wasted as the overworked nurse, who makes her daughter’s tea before working more overtime.

Her main role is to reassure Simon that men don’t have to be the sole breadwinners anymore, before saying, “Shall we open another bottle?”

If we followed the story through her eyes, it might be better, although we would probably see double.