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CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Split: Barcelona on BBC1: Old flames, prenups, affairs ...
I'm wedded to these divorce lawyers By CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC FOR DAILY MAIL Published: 01:00, 31 December 2024 | Updated: 01:11, 31 December 2024 e-mail View comments The Split: Barcelona Rating: Could there be three more romantic words in any language than, 'Please sign here’? Blushing boyfriends used to go down on one knee and offer an engagement ring along with their undying love as they proposed marriage. Now they wave a fountain pen and a prenup under the bride-to-be’s nose. A prenuptial agreement threatened to come between smouldering Spaniard Gael (Alex Guersman) and lawyers’ daughter Liv (Elizabeth Roberts) on the day before their wedding, in the deliciously schlocky romcom reprise The Split: Barcelona.
The couple’s parents, with a frostiness that defied the Catalonia sunshine, were still fighting over the wording of the financial agreement. ‘Everyone needs a Plan B, Liv,’ warned her mother, Hannah (Nicola Walker), a professional divorce specialist, as she arrived at the venue — a magnificent farm and vineyard owned by the groom’s glamorous madre and padre, who boasted that their prenup had been scribbled on a napkin over a candlelit dinner. You might suppose, if your wedding photos were taken in the pre-digital era when cameras used film, that prenups are the preserve of the wealthy and the pretentious.
The cast from left to right: Nathan (Stephen Mangan), Hannah (Nicola Walker ), Archie (Toby Stephens) star in the deliciously schlocky romcom reprise The Split: Barcelona Hannah with her now ex-husband, Nathan, who looks less ostentatiously well-off, but that might be because he is played by Stephen Mangan, an actor who specialises in unkempt scruffy chic Hannah and her sisters Nina (left) played by Annabel Scholey and Rose (right) played by Fiona Button The last series ended in 2018 with Hannah’s last entanglement going off to New York without her and writer Abi Morgan seemed unlikely to revive the show But according to a 2021 survey by the Marriage Foundation, a fifth of newlyweds now lay out the terms of their future break-up with legal precision before they take their vows. And that figure rocketed last year, with one law firm reporting a 60 per cent increase in prenup clients. No wonder Hannah and her mother, retired matrimonial lawyer Ruth (Deborah Findlay), look so prosperous.
So does her younger sister, Nina (Annabel Scholey), who has rocked up at the winery with her new boyfriend, net worth £100 million. Bisexual Nina can afford to be so blasé about this that she promptly seduced the housekeeper, who was female. Hannah’s ex-husband, Nathan, looks less ostentatiously well-off, but that might be because he is played by Stephen Mangan, an actor who specialises in the sort of unkempt scruffy chic that makes Boris Johnson look like he’s spent the morning in a male grooming parlour.
We’ve been revelling in this family’s melodramas since 2018, but when Hannah’s last entanglement ended with the rotten blighter going off to New York without her, writer Abi Morgan seemed unlikely to revive the show. Thankfully, she has realised The Split supplies the perfect format for a never-ending story. There can’t be a happy-ever-after when the characters swap partners more often than they change their socks, so with luck this might not be their last outing.
In this two-parter, Nathan was pining for the comforts of his old home. Life in an apartment with a younger wife, a toddler and a baby wasn’t as much fun as he imagined — and it serves him right. The lawyer in the adjoining room was also an old flame of Hannah’s, and a divorcee, of course.
As well as arguing over prenups and division of spoils, Archie (Toby Stephens) was suing to win Hannah’s heart. He’d better read the small print. Share or comment on this article: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Split: Barcelona on BBC1: Old flames, prenups, affairs .
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