Nicola Walker is simply magnificent in The Split: Barcelona
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As we pick up with the characters from Abi Morgan’s divorce lawyer drama two years after its finale, it feels like checking in with old friends. A beautiful young couple rushing headlong into marriage. A sun-soaked location. Romantic complications trailing the mother of the bride. There’s more than a dash of Mamma Mia! to The Split: Barcelona, the two-part special that picks up on BBC One a couple of years after Abi Morgan’s divorce lawyer drama came to an end – although given that our protagonists are a family of high-flying solicitors, everyone has considerably worse work-life balance than they do in Abba-world.
![[The Defoe sisters’ sibling dynamic is realistically but affectionately observed]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/18/09/newFile-3.jpg)
Indeed, the hustle never stops for Hannah Defoe, played by the magnificent Nicola Walker. She’s barely touched down in Spain before she’s fine-tuning the details of a prenuptial agreement, although this particular legal document is closer to her heart than most. Her daughter Liv (Elizabeth Roberts) is about to tie the knot with her boyfriend Gael (Alex Guersman), who happens to be the wealthy heir to a glorious Catalonian vineyard famed for its merlot and muscat. “Our contribution to this wedding will cover, at best, the patatas bravas,” quips Nathan (Stephen Mangan), Hannah’s ex-husband and the father of the bride, whose new tiny hoop earring seems to augur an impending mid-life crisis (it also provides a punchline for plenty of mockery from his in-laws).
![[Nicola Walker’s performance as Hannah is the main event]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/18/09/newFile-4.jpg)
Gael’s glamorous parents Valentina (Romina Cocca) and Alvaro (Manu Fullola) are keen for the bride and groom-to-be to secure their respective assets before walking down the aisle; Liv, despite having grown up in a home where marital settlements were discussed over the dinner table, sees the whole thing as depressingly unromantic. Oh, and the lawyer acting for Liv’s new in-laws? He just happens to be Archie (Toby Stephens), the charming bloke who Hannah met on Hinge, only to pre-emptively ghost him when she thought things were getting a bit too meaningful (she’s still haunted, it seems, by the end of her affair with former colleague Christie, and his subsequent departure for a new life in New York).
