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.