Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: April de Angelis, bbc, BBC Radio 4, Convenience Store Woman, japanese literature, radio drama, Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman: Dark Satire Offers Kinder, Gentler Psychopath

Convenience Store Woman is one of those things that BBC Radio Drama has done brilliantly for decades to the point of everyone taking it for granted: an adaptation of an acclaimed novel from another country. Keiko (Yuriri Naka) is a 36-year-old woman who's been working in the same Tokyo convenience store for eighteen years, her entire adult life. She's never had a boyfriend and has no desire for marriage or kids. Her family wishes she'd get a proper job and be "normal." All her friends wonder why she won't get married and keep offering to fix her up. All Keiko wants is to live her life without being judged or hassled.

Keiko meets Shirato (Will Howard), an incel who's her complete opposite. Entitled, resentful, sexist, and obsessed with how only alpha men get top positions in "the tribe" (society) and choice of mateable women, she proposes he move in with her and pass as "normal" so they can provide cover for each other from society to stop pressuring them to get married. The problem is, Shirato, like all incels, is a selfish sociopath who mooches off women, friends, and family while making vague noises about starting a successful business where he would eventually get rich, and Keiko slowly sees that having him around might not have been the best idea. Shirato is one of the most concise depictions of an incel with his toxicity without hammering the point too hard.

Convenience Store Woman is A Gentle Comedy About a Nice Psychopath

What's unsaid is that Keiko shows signs of being an undiagnosed psychopath. She has no real emotional affect and has to constantly learn to pass as "normal" while existing outside the norms of society. She's not a criminal or a murderer who just wants to find her corner of life to live in peace. Her sister and family's distress and fear that she doesn't act "normal" and wishing she could be "cured" are more about their – and society's demands than hers. Mental health issues are more misunderstood the more repressive and conformist society is. Convenience Store Woman is a satire about Japan's demand for conformism and how society – not just Japan's – is not prepared to cope with people unable or unwilling to follow the rules. They truly don't understand them, even when they do no harm.

Keiko and the awful Shirato's relationship becomes a contest of wills. He gets free room and board at her place as he tries to mold her to do his bidding. The thing about psychopaths is they don't really have emotion, and sociopaths are all irrational emotions. Nothing beats cool, rational logic with no feelings to hurt, and Keiko gets her happy ending, which is surreal and darkly hilarious.

Convenience Store Woman is adapted by playwright and radio drama veteran April De Angelis from the translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori. The novel is an international bestseller by Sayaka Murata, one of the most celebrated of a new generation of Japanese writers, who spent 18 years working part-time in a convenience store. The novel has been translated into over 30 languages, with more than a million copies sold in Japan, where it won all of Japan's major literary prizes. What the BBC radio production has done is cast Asian-British and British actors to play the characters with normal British regional accents, so the listener doesn't think of them as foreign but as relatable local people. It's a subtle means to send the message that everyone is the same, an exercise in empathy. The script also has an added layer of ironic British wit that BBC drama does better than anyone else in the world. This radio play – or scripted drama podcast, as Americans call it – is a Grade A example of the medium.

Convenience Store Woman is streaming free worldwide on BBC Sounds for a month- you can check it out here.

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