TV review: The Girls at the Back feels real and is good for the soul

Each of the characters wrote down the one thing they’d like to do before they die, and all of them must do these things during the holiday... the first of these is to have a lesbian experience, which they all managed on their first night

The Girls at the Back: Mariona Terés as Leo; Godeliv van dan Brandt as Olga; María Rodríguez as Carol; Mónica Miranda as Alma and Itsaso Arana as Sara

I had no intention of watching The Girls at the Back (Netflix.) It didn’t make much of a splash when it aired late year, so when my wife said she was going to give it a go on a friend’s recommendation, I slid into reading Manchester United transfer rumours on the internet.

Five minutes later, I’d put down my phone. This Spanish show opens with five women getting their heads shaved. There was something arresting in the way they lost bits of their individuality and started to fuse into a unit. The hook is that one of them, unnamed, has cancer — and her four friends since school (the girls are the back of the classroom) are shaving their head in solidarity as they head off on a road trip to the south of Spain.

At this point, any man reading this has gone back to looking at transfer rumours about Manchester United. But this show is different. The writing and acting is on the button. None of the five characters are perfect or even particularly nice — they are all mildly annoying in their own way. It reminded me of Sex and the City, but in Spanish.

The Girls at the Back: Godeliv van dan Brandt as Olga; Mariona Terés as Leo; Itsaso Arana as Sara; Mónica Miranda as Alma. Netflix

That matters, because Spanish don’t do nicey-nicey, at least not for too long. So whenever this felt like it might get bogged down in sentimentality, someone would pull the rug with a loud, funny joke and they’d open another bottle of cava.

The setting around Cadiz is part of the attraction, the sun beating down on white-washed villages and windy beaches with the promise of summer. The engine of the story is each of the women wrote down the one thing they’d like to do before they die, and all of them must do these things during the holiday. The first of these is to have a lesbian experience, which they all managed on their first night with hilariously touching consequences.

But the plot isn’t really the point. This is a celebration of lifelong friendship, male or female. It’s the joy of being around people you’ve known forever, saying what you feel, falling out and falling back in, laughing at each other’s faults, and knowing when to lend a hand.

The identity of the woman with cancer isn’t revealed until the end and it’s bittersweet. But it doesn’t really matter.

The Girls at the Back is the story of five 30-year-olds, close friends since school, who organise a one-week getaway together every year without exception. This year, something has come up that will force them to invent new rules of the game: One of them has been diagnosed with cancer. There are trips that change your life forever. There are lives that travel changes forever

If The Girls at the Back was American, it would have been a huge hit and it would have been awful. Most American shows ( Sex and The City excepted) couldn’t resist the temptation to put a positive spin on a road-trip show about someone with cancer. There would be ‘learnings’ and oceans of tears.

There were tears on The Girls at the Back as well, but most of them were falling down on laughing lips. This show felt real.

The Girls at the Back/ Las de la Última Fila on Netflix

So from now on I’m going to listen up when I hear that my wife got a recommendation from her buddies. And I’m half planning a short break in Cadiz. The whole thing was good for the soul.