TV & Radio

Butterfly: A compelling performance from Emmett J Scanlan as the father of a trans child

TV review: This 2018 series about a transgender child has lost none of its newsworthiness

Butterfly: Anna Friel as Vicky, Callum Booth-Ford as Maxine, Emmett J Scanlan as Stephen and Millie Gibson as Lily

Ed Power's face
Ed Power
Wed Mar 9 2022 - 11:56

Butterfly (TG4, Tuesday) originally aired in October 2018 on ITV – a channel no longer widely available in Irish households. Three-and-a half years on, this Anna Friel-led series about a transgender child has lost none of its newsworthiness. And what is the purpose of drama if not to illuminate the talking points of our age?

Emmett J Scanlan puts flesh and bone on the caricature of a blokey dad who just wants his child to grow up interested in girls and football.

Max (Callum Booth-Ford) is 11 but has little interest in what are perceived as traditional “boy” interests such as soccer or Fortnite. Max instead likes to dress in pink and sing along to Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.

(In later episodes, Max is called Maxine; in this article about episode one, in which the central character is presented with a male name and pronouns, this reviewer is doing the same.)

When the parents jump to the conclusion that Max is gay, Max tells them they are wrong. The truth is arrived at when older sister Lily (Millie Gibson) says she doesn’t see Max as her brother but her sister.

READ MORE

Tom Marchant’s three-part series is about a child’s fight for the right to express themselves. It is also about two parents and their struggles to accept their child for the person they are.

Anna Friel’s Vicky is on Max’s side. And yet she tries to convince Max that, out in the world, there are limits to a person’s freedom to express themselves. “You’re a boy on the outside. In public, you do what boys do.”

Max’s father, Stephen, remains in denial. He thinks it’s a phase and that, come puberty, hormones will assert Max’s maleness. Stephen is a conservative hot-head, and it’s a compelling performance from Emmett J Scanlan, who puts flesh and bone on the caricature of a blokey dad who just wants his child, whom he sees as male, to grow up interested in girls and football.

Scanlan is one of a number of Irish actors in the cast. Sean McGinley turns up at Max’s amiable grandfather. And there’s a cameo by Amy Huberman with a Manchester accent, as Stephen’s love interest during his separation from Vicky.

Trans identity is alien to Stephen, who is stunned at the suggestion of using hormone blockers to delay Max’s adolescence. He also rips apart his family when physically lashing out at Max for refusing to take off a pink jumper.

Scanlan plays Stephen as a man who probably regards himself as decent and yet who finds that there are limits to his tolerance.

Friel is equally compelling as mum Vicky. She is on Max’s side entirely. And yet she is inclined to blame herself: is Max trans because she so dearly wanted her unborn child to be a girl?

She also fears for Max’s future in the world that awaits. There are signs of what lies ahead as Max begins secondary school and is expected to use the boy’s lavatory. But when Max sets out on the path to becoming Maxine by expressing a wish to wear a dress to school, Vicky’s heart swells. “I think you look lovely,” she says.