To die by your side

Andrew O'Hagan's novel has inspired a touching drama about life-long mates facing up to mortality.

- RUSSELL BROWN

MAYFLIES, TVNZ+, from Friday April 7 

Tully is the kind of man who, having resolved to end it all and save all the bother by walking into the sea, does so wearing his Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy T-shirt. Mayflies is a story about the men of a certain age who not only still like to get out a Fall album every now and then, but who also feel in some way defined by the music of their youth. If you're not one yourself, you probably know one or two.

Andrew O'Hagan, the 54-year-old on whose 2020 novel the two-part drama is based, mused in an interview with the Guardian about the book that post-punk music was the stuff of lifelong camaraderie for men of his generation.

"Our fathers may have found their friendships in the army or in a factory. Our children may find them online. In between was that moment when you made half your friends at bus stops with people who had the same mission as you: heading into town to buy the new Smiths record."

Andrea Gibb, who adapted the novel for TV, described O'Hagan's novel as "unusual because it explores platonic love between a group of young working-class men who are steeped in politics and culture and who dare to dream of a life beyond their own circumstances. It's inspirational in that way."