NORWEGIAN WOULD (THEN YOU RUN)

You can almost hear the pitch as you watch 'Then You Run'.

"Imagine a London 'Derry Girls' crossed with 'The End of the F**king World' and 'Killing Eve'."

And that's what you get.

But how does it compare to those three shows?

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'Then You Run' begins with Christian Rubeck's The Traveller, a serial killer who runs amok among traffic stalled in a continental snowstorm - casually dispatching everybody else in their cars.

Other episodes begin with him slaughtering people in a motel and on a train.

But what is his connection to the main plot?

That begins in earnest with Leah McNamara's Londoner Tara O'Rourke mourning her Irish grandmother.

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Her friends, Vivian Oparah's risk taking, man mad Stink, Yasmin Monet Prince's studious Ruthie and Isidora Fairhurst's Nessi provide moral support at the old lady's Requiem Mass which features an open casket.

As the friends await their A Level results, they decide to follow Tara to Rotterdam on a city break after her estranged dad, Cillian O'Sullivan's Orin reaches out to her despite failing to make the funeral.

Tara's relatives, however, are very dodgy.

Her uncle, Richard Coyle's Reagan is a ruthless Dublin criminal running a European drugs network out of the Dutch port and is constantly disappointed by his son, Darren Cahill's Darian.

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Orin's home is used to store drugs.

And while her dad tries to re-establish a bond between them, things go sour when Tara stumbles upon him having a video chat with her mum, Lise Risom Olsen's Maggie who she remembers having been killed in a car crash when she was a child.

Angered by him keeping this contact secret, Tara hits him with a laptop and ends up killing him.

When her friends arrive and stumble upon bags of heroin, the gang panics and bundles Orin into a freezer - eventually taking him out again and heading on a road trip to Norway in a bid to reunite Tara with her mum.

After all, her mum would understand.

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Puzzled by his brother's silence, Reagan is shocked to find him dead and frozen in his home.

Realising the drugs are missing, he immediately pins the blame on Tara.

Reagan needs to recover the heroin, though because its absence could endanger a deal he is striking with a German criminal associate, Famke Janssen's Dagmar.

Tara, Stink, Ruthie and Nessi make some rookie mistakes as they head to Norway via Germany, leaving their phones on.

This enables Reagan and his hoodlums to track them down at a supermarket near the autobahn.

With Tara dispatching another of Reagan's gang after a shootout and Stink determined to sell the heroin, the girls have brushes with the German police as well as Dagmar and Reagan's gangs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them.

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However they also make a family connection to the Traveller that will have even worse consequences - unleashing more murder and mayhem.

Adapted by Ben Chanan from a novel 'You' by the Croatian German author Zoran Drvenkar, 'Then You Run' is a hyper violent, eight episode, darkly comic European romp.

Breezily directed by Robert McKillop, Delyth Thomas and Paul Walker, it's the kind of series that would normally sit quite comfortably on the schedules of BBC3 or E4.

It is primarily aimed at a yoof audience and isn't really interested in anything too deep beyond testing the boundaries of friendship and Tara's dodgy family ties.

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The performances in the show are spirited.

Monet Prince and Fairhurst are engaging enough, while McNamara and Oparah, who is definitely having a moment following the success of 'Rye Lane,' are given the more meaty roles.

Coyle is as you'd expect, relishing a chat to trot out a Dublin hardman performance - although it's not quite on the level of an Aidan Gillen and it is somewhat overshadowed by Francis Magee's dark comic turn as one of his henchmen, Turi.

Cahill is appealing as Darian, while Janssen enjoys her chance to play the villainous Dagmar.

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However even these criminals feel like a rehash of the darkly comic portrayals of Dublin criminals in 'The General,' 'Perrier's Bounty' and 'The Guard'.

Rubeck provides his money's worth as the unhinged Traveller and there are notable performances from O'Sullivan and Anton Nurnberg as Marten, a sweet natured young German the girls come across on their travels.

The cross border murder and mayhem is reminiscent of 'Killing Eve' whose stylish, nod and a mischievous wink violence it apes.

However the banter between the four friends doesn't quite have the same bite as 'Derry Girls,' nor does it quite achieve the quirkiness of 'The End of the F**king World'.

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Nevertheless, it's a decent enough romp that has one outstanding episode centring on Stink, Turi and Darian after she gets separated from her mates.

The door is held open for a second series and don't be surprised if that happens.

But it would be good if Chanan could avoid the temptation to go fully down the 'Killing Eve' route of shallow, disposable violence that ultimately undermined that show.

There's definitely scope to give this show much more depth and if they are looking for a template, 'The End of the F**king World' is it.

A second series will  tell the tale but if it can approach that Channel 4 show's greatness, that will be no mean feat.

('Then You Run' was broadcast on Sky Max between July 7- August 25, 2023)