Dawn Shadforth makes atmospheric drama without letting the setting distract from the actors. We rate her care with women's everyday troubles, though in Trespasses the family is sometimes more persuasive than the central affair.
Fi1m perspective
Cushla Lavery has fallen in love, but there is still a family to contend with. In Trespasses (2025), Dawn Shadforth gives those competing demands enough attention to make the woman more interesting than the affair. Lola Petticrew's performance matters here: Cushla has difficulties that cannot be explained by her choice of lover. We were moved by the family's troubles because Shadforth allows them to matter in their own right, rather than treating them as something to get through before the next romantic encounter.
Shadforth came to long-form television drama through experimental work, documentaries and music videos, directing the latter from the mid-1990s. Her collaborators in music videos include Kylie Minogue and cinematographer Robbie Ryan. Episodes of Trust (2018) marked the move into longer drama, followed by the female-led Adult Material (2020), which examines power within the adult industry. Mood (2022), with its fantasy sequences and comedy-drama, continued her interest in heightened storytelling. The attention to women under pressure gives us a useful way into Trespasses, beyond its attractions as a period romance.
Ailbhe Keogan's adaptation of Louise Kennedy's novel gives Shadforth a life beyond the central relationship to work with. The 1970s Belfast setting feels inhabited, and the period detail helps us understand the circumstances shaping the characters' choices. Brian Irvine and David Holmes provide the music, within a production whose atmosphere does not distract from the performances. What works is the attention paid to ordinary life: the setting remains important even when Cushla is preoccupied with love.
The reservation is the affair itself, which is occasionally unpersuasive despite the care taken around it. Shadforth is better here at making the woman's wider life convincing than at making us believe in the lovers' deepest feelings. That still leaves four rewarding episodes, with Petticrew and Gillian Anderson giving us good reasons to stay. Start with Trespasses, and leave room to care about someone other than the lovers.
Biography
Dawn Shadforth is a British director of music videos, television and film, and a visual artist. Born on 11 October 1973 in Billericay, Essex, she graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in sculpture.
She began her career directing documentaries for Channel 4 before becoming known for music videos, including work with Kylie Minogue, Oasis and Florence and the Machine. Shadforth moved into drama with the short film The Big Day (2017), which won the British Independent Film Award for Best British Short Film. Her television credits include episodes of Trust (2018), His Dark Materials (2019), Adult Material (2020), Mood (2022), Apples Never Fall (2024) and the series Trespasses (2025), on which she also served as executive producer.
