Sister Michael

Sister Michael runs the girls' Catholic school in Derry with the weary authority of someone who has seen every excuse in the book and finds none of them interesting. She meets teenage chaos — Erin's dramatics, Orla's oddness, the whole gang's schemes — with flat, unimpressed stares and a total refusal to be charmed.

The joke is the gap between what a nun is supposed to be and what Sister Michael actually is: bored, sharp-tongued, allergic to sentiment. Siobhán McSweeney plays her with impeccable deadpan timing, letting one raised eyebrow do the work of a paragraph, and the writing trusts her silence as much as her lines.