‘Dad having a gun under the couch wasn’t normal’: How Blue Lights showed the dark side of Belfast

Blue Lights burst onto the screen last year as a rare, electrifying word-of-mouth hit, recommended by both critics and colleagues with an urgency – you must see this. It was terrifying, hard-edged, touching, funny and beautiful to watch, hurling away the rules of the police procedural by following three green recruits through the mean streets of Belfast, where violent death could – and did – take out even the most beloved character.