The hilarity of Derry Girls is so powerful that it transcends language. The Irish sitcom, currently streaming on Netflix, follows four girls (and their teen guy accomplice) who are growing up in Northern Ireland during the last years of the Troubles. A good 74 percent of any given episode is likely unintelligible to anyone who didn’t grow up hearing an Irish accent; it takes a few episodes to admit defeat and finally switch on the subtitles. 

Derry Girls focuses on that part of life when, as a teen, everything feels urgent. Crushes, concerts, detention, gossip, and cliques dominate its characters’ lives – as is the norm for many teens. The difference here is that the Derry girls of the show’s title are dealing with these staples of adolescence against the backdrop of a 30-year ethnoreligious clash.

The Troubles is the long period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s through the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

But the beauty of the series is that amid all the chaos, amid all these events that are written in history books, showrunner Lisa Mc Gee never loses sight of what’s important: her girls growing up, and, of course, being able to see Take That concert live.

It is a stream from us.