THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS + INSIDE NO. 9 + HORIZON: MAKING SENSE OF CANCER WITH HANNAH FRY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th May 2022.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Midwich Cuckoos – Thursday, Sky Showcase, 9pm

This contemporary eight-part adaptation of John Wyndham’s classic science-fiction novel feels quite promising. The premise: in a picturesque English market town, every woman of child-bearing age inexplicably becomes pregnant overnight. 

I won’t elaborate in case you haven’t read the book or seen the 1960 film adaptation, Village of the Damned. What I will say is that it boasts an effective air of mounting unease. Director Alice Troughton bathes much of the action in disquieting summer twilight. It has a subtly nightmarish quality. 

Keeley Hawes plays a sympathetic child therapist with a vulnerable daughter. Max Beesley is an everyman local police chief whose wife is already pregnant before the strange incident occurs. A self-contained apocalypse ensues.

Lucy Worsley Investigates – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

In episode two of her probing history lesson, Worsley tackles the Bubonic plague. She focuses on the first and most catastrophic outbreak, which took place in mid-14^th century Britain. Approximately half the population were wiped out. 

In an effort to explain how this devastating pandemic transformed British society, she traces the sad story of a typical peasant farming family. Her rigorous research unearths an ugly tumult of systemic hypocrisy, prejudice and injustice. So-called moral leaders exploited this horrific situation for their own financial and political gain. 

As usual, Worsley slyly reads between the lines with regards to the cyclical nature of history. She doesn’t have to spell it out explicitly, but some things never change.

Once Upon a Time in Londongrad – Tuesday, Sky Showcase, 9pm

This timely series examines 14 suspicious high-profile UK deaths with alleged connections to Putin’s Russia. It’s led by investigative journalist Heidi Blake and her BuzzFeed News colleagues, who for the last few years have immersed themselves in these interconnected cases. 

It begins with the murky saga of Scot Young, a Dundee-born tycoon who died in 2014 after falling from a window of his London penthouse. His ex-wife believes he was murdered. Young was allegedly involved in dealings with a powerful Russian oligarch who had no truck with Putin. 

I’ve only seen the first two episodes, but the overall aim is clear: to expose corruption on a vast and far-reaching scale. Organised crime comes in many guises.

Between the Covers – Wednesday, BBC Two, 7:30pm

This week, your genial book club host Sara Cox is joined by the comedians Jo Brand and Darren Harriott, plus the actors Neil Morrissey and Nina Wadia. 

New titles under review include Love Marriage by Monica Ali and The Faber Book of Reportage, a hefty centuries-spanning compendium of dramatic eyewitness accounts. 

The latest selections from their ongoing Big Jubilee Read list, which celebrates great authors from all across the Commonwealth, are The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Disgrace by J.M. Coatzee. Thumbs are raised. 

Side note: Brand reveals in passing that she was named after Jo from Little Women. A fitting honour for someone who is quite clearly one of the most decent showbiz personalities.    

George Clarke’s Flipping Fast – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

This is a series in which George Clarke, a man so bland he makes Alan Titchmarsh look like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, presides over six teams chasing their property development dreams. They have no experience in this field, but apparently all you need to succeed is blind ambition and £100,000 in the bank. 

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen this programme, preview copies weren’t available, but as a doggedly professional connoisseur of Channel 4’s never-ending avalanche of lifestyle/makeover shows, I can pretty much guarantee that it will be formulaic business as usual. 

I mention it only in the hope that it provides you with some fleeting schadenfreude a la Grand Designs. Still, good luck to all concerned.

Inside No. 9 – Wednesday, BBC Two, 10pm

They’ve saved the best until last. The final episode of this current series pivots around a series of authentically rendered animated 1970s Public Information Films in the Charley Says vein. 

Some of those old PIFs are notoriously odd and unsettling, a natural source of inspiration for Pemberton and Shearsmith. The latter plays a man haunted by memories of one particular TV campaign. Pemberton provides a few brief moments of levity as a neighbour lumbered with a dead rabbit in urgent next of taxidermy. 

As writers, they both tread carefully around a story which could have, in less capable hands, sunk into a quagmire of very poor taste. They pull it off, I think. The discomfort they create is emotionally justified.

Horizon: Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

Last year, the mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She began filming herself as a way of getting through the ordeal. 

Perhaps an intimate record could help her and fellow cancer patients gain a deeper understanding of what they have to deal with. This searching documentary is the result. 

Fry has carried out some extensive statistical analysis of cancer treatment. That’s thrown up some difficult questions. Are doctors making the right decisions when it comes to treating cancer patients? Are we even at risk of over-medicalising cancer? 

This, to say the least, is a highly sensitive subject. Fry’s conversations with patients and medical experts are unflinchingly honest, but it’s all handled with care. 

LAST WEEK’S TV

Top of the Pops: The Story of 1998 – Saturday 21st May, BBC Two

In ‘98 the Spice Girls were in freefall. Robbie Williams became a bona fide solo star. Keith Allen captured hearts and minds with Vindaloo by Fat Les. What a time it was to be young. 

This recent spate of TOTP retrospectives has obviously struggled with budget cuts, hence the same bunch of talking heads appearing in multiple episodes. Must we hear Huey Morgan’s thoughts on everything? 

However, this episode did at least introduce some new recruits, most notably All Saints, who came across well in their good-natured group interview. They’re still on friendly terms. In the fraught world of pop, that’s a heartening anomaly. 

Also, I must admit, that chaotic Fat Les studio performance was quite amusing. Sorry.

2 Tone: The Sound of Coventry – Saturday 21st May, BBC Two

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a small independent Coventry record label sparked a nationwide phenomenon. 2 Tone fused ska with the spirit of punk and a mod aesthetic. 

Under the yoke of Thatcherism and neo-Nazi violence, The Specials, The Beat, Madness and The Selecter hosted a racially integrated party fuelled by music, fashion, fun and politics: left-wing, working-class, anti-racist social commentary you could dance to. 

This lovingly curated documentary captured the subversive thrill of that hugely significant cultural uprising. Perceptive insight was provided by Pauline Black from The Selecter, Neville Staple from The Specials, and his erstwhile bandmate/visionary movement leader Jerry Dammers. They all achieved something of lasting impact. A beautiful celebration.

IT'S A SIN + AN ENDLESS PROCESSION OF CELEBRITIES WANDERING AROUND BRITAIN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 13th February 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

It’s a Sin – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

Over the last five weeks, I’ve taken the unprecedented and quite frankly maverick step of choosing the same show as my highlight of the week. That’s because nothing has come close to It’s a Sin, the Russell T. Davies-penned drama about a group of friends dealing with the AIDS crisis. 

And now it comes to an end. 

Ritchie (Olly Alexander) is seriously ill at home on the Isle of Wight. His formidable mother (a strikingly nuanced turn from Keeley Hawes) struggles to cope with her pain, anger and confusion. A near-continuous shot through the corridors and wards of a hospital where patients are dying of AIDS is breath-taking. It’s a Sin will linger for a very long time.

Jay and Dom’s Home Fix – Monday, BBC One, 3:45pm

During the pandemic, I’ve become mildly obsessed with the increasingly obvious ways in which TV has been forced to operate. This new series is a case in point. 

It stars the genial Jay Blades and Dom Chinea from The Repair Shop, as they beaver away in their socially distanced workshop. Their M.O: provide some practical money-saving DIY advice, which is apparently easy to follow for viewers who aren’t, like me, incompetent Frank Spencer types. 

But their segments are padded out with a compendium of emergency archive clips from gently hands-on lifestyle shows such as Flog It!, Gardener’s World and Monty Don’s Big Dreams, Small Spaces. Yet despite its blatantly cobbled-together nature, it’s a perfectly pleasant distraction.

Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home: Travels in My Own Land – Tuesday, STV, 8pm

This week’s travel-heavy schedules feel like a sadistic joke orchestrated by a phalanx of ostensibly inoffensive celebrities hell-bent on reminding us of the wonderful world outside our hermetic lockdown bubbles. 

During the final leg of her entirely random sojourn around Britain, Lumley and her spectacular array of scarves, snoods and sou’westers visit a Victorian slate-mining settlement in the misty mountains of Snowdonia. She also meets the GoCompare opera singer. 

While travelling through Devon and Cornwall (more of which below), she observes some Dartmoor druids performing an incantation, before ending where she began with another member of the Windrush Generation. A 95-year-old former musician, he’s glad to have lived to see numerous positive changes in this country.

Grand Tours of Scotland’s Lochs – Wednesday, BBC One, 7:30pm

In which the permanently be-hatted, neckerchief-swaddled, backpack-laden and always engaging Paul Murton returns for another informative Loch-side ramble. 

He begins his latest series on the beauteous Isle of Skye, with ancient myths and legends coursing through his mind. He sows a neatly sprawling tapestry of plundering Vikings, ancient Highland bagpipe traditions, gruesome feuds and battles, and a beatific visitation from Donovan, who once owned three of the surrounding islands during his high Arcadian ‘60s heyday. 

Murton also touches upon the horrific story of the Hebridean slaves, that most extreme example of 18^th century Scots being forced to leave their homes while under the governance of despicable land barons. I’m looking at you, Norman MacLeod.

Cornwall and Devon Walks with Julia Bradbury – Wednesday, STV, 8pm

And those feet just keep on walking. This week, Bradbury’s never-ending hike takes her to a vineyard in Totness and a massive house in Dartmouth that once belonged to Agatha Christie. 

Yomping travelogues such as this have been parodied so often over the years - by Alan Partridge in particular – you would think they’d be dead in the water. But no, they march on undaunted, impervious to satire. 

What with this, Lumley’s programme and John Nettles’ preposterously narrated Channel 4 series, there can’t be a single square inch of Devon and Cornwall that hasn’t been explored on television by now. Enough already. 

The logical next step: Gregg Wallace floating alone in the infinite depths of space.

Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

I wish I was making this up for hilariously satirical effect, but here’s yet another cosy jaunt around the British Isles. 

If you happened to read last week’s column, then you may dimly recall the drill: each week, Toksvig and a famous female pal visit remote British locations and stay in unusual lodgings. Toksvig provides a few pertinent historical titbits. Sometimes they drink cocktails. There is literally nothing more to it than that. 

Her minibreak companion this time around is Jessica Hynes. An affable duo, they luxuriate in a lovingly restored 19^th century windmill, an 18^th century farmhouse located in the middle of a nature reserve, and a stylish glass-fronted beach house. So that’s nice, isn’t it?

LAST WEEK’S TV

Forensics: The Real CSI – Tuesday 9th February, BBC Two

“Hello. I’ve just murdered my wife.” 

So began the latest series of this sombre study of crime scene investigators. It followed forensic specialists from Birmingham as they carefully pieced together an accurate report on a brutal domestic murder. The husband may have confessed during his initial call to emergency services, but they couldn’t guarantee that he would stick to his story. There were no witnesses. Inevitably, they got him in the end. 

I’m always in two minds about shows of this nature. They’re technically well-made and relatively sensitive. They provide compelling insight into how the police and forensic investigators operate. But they also feed off terrible tragedies, and I feel guilty for getting drawn in.

Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby – Thursday February 11, BBC Two

We really don’t need another series of this jet-setting trash in which MasterChef judge Monica Galetti and the vile journalist Giles Coren – a man in his fifties who still hasn’t learned how to eat with his trap shut – visit various five-star hotels. 

There’s no wry commentary a la Alan Whicker or Louis Theroux, no suggestion that this luxury is repugnant and deranged: it’s an uncritical celebration of how the 1% live. 

Oh, it pays lip service to issues such as the environment and the local economy, and the hosts briefly muck in behind-the-scenes, but their efforts are perfunctory and patronising: these factotums work jolly hard, don’t they? Now, let’s have a glass of morning champagne! 

Horrible, horrible television.

 

 

KATIE PRICE: HARVEY & ME + IT'S A SIN + FINDING ALICE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 23rd January 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Katie Price: Harvey and Me – Monday, BBC One, 8:30pm

Harvey Price was born with a rare genetic disorder. He is also autistic and has been diagnosed with several other behavioural and medical conditions. Last year, he turned 18. 

This intimate documentary follows Harvey and his mother, Katie, as they attempt to deal with a milestone in their lives. Katie has many important decisions to make with regards to Harvey’s future. Like all parents of children with disabilities, she wants him to achieve as much independence as possible. We accompany her during visits to various colleges, as she ascertains whether they can cater to his extensive needs. 

A poignant programme about a loving mother and child relationship, it also raises awareness of the (sometimes expensive) opportunities available to young disabled adults and their families.

Lightning – Monday to Friday, BBC Two, 6:30pm

Here’s fun. A new early evening quiz show in which members of the public compete for a £3,000 jackpot. The set design and format are blatantly indebted to The Weakest Link, but it’s faster, friendlier. Host Zoe Lyons is an unobtrusive presence who keeps it all ticking along nicely. 

Six contestants wearing conspicuously massive nametags answer general knowledge questions in a bid to stay in the game. It couldn’t be more straightforward. Yes, there’s a curious interlude involving a hand-eye coordination game, but that’s a minor diversion. 

Like all the best quizzes, Lightning encourages us to shout answers back at the screen. It’s something to enjoy while having your tea or staving off an endlessly nocturnal existential crisis.

Devon and Cornwall – Monday, Channel 4, 8pm

Time once again to bask in the Sunday-roasted narration of John Nettles, who stands astride this picturesque series like old King Neptune swigging ostentatiously from a flagon of Bishop’s Peculiar. Ah, Britain. 

It’s impossible to take Devon and Cornwall seriously. What should be a fairly inoffensive little programme about people living and working in a particularly beautiful corner of this country we call home is rendered utterly ridiculous by Nettles. Even Matt Berry would ask him to tone it down a notch. 

This week we meet a nice man devoted to cleaning up the shores from plastic pollution and, well, I must admit that Bergerac’s bombast made me laugh too much to focus on the rest. Comedy gold.

Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema – Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

In the final episode of his current series, Kermode runs pell-mell into his wheelhouse: cult films. A broad church, admittedly, and it does feel like he’s mopping up films he hasn’t had a chance to talk about yet; but to his credit he weaves them into a persuasive critical narrative. 

“Films don’t become cult movies on purpose,” he says, “and filmmakers don’t decide which films fall into that category. We do.” 

This is a forum where the works of Kurosawa and Ed Wood are equally deserving of discussion. His fine series also proves that viewers are perfectly capable of enjoying no-frills televised lectures. Plus he celebrates one of my favourites, the surrealist 1960s Czechoslovak satire, Daises. Good man.

Back – Thursday, Channel 4, 10pm

As the second series of this very funny sitcom continues, Stephen (David Mitchell) encounters someone else who may well be his genetic father. He’s known as Charismatic Mike (Anthony Head), a self-styled free spirit who dresses like David Essex in roguish canal-dwelling mode. 

The pub locals love him, of course, much to the chagrin of gas-lighting Andrew (Robert Webb), whose carefully stage-managed status as empathetic village cool guy is immediately threatened. Stephen laments that if Mike isn’t his dad, “It could be a bloke called Cheeky Pete who stabbed livestock.” 

This episode was written by Will Smith (not that one), who, like series creator Simon Blackwell, cut his situation comedy teeth on The Thick of It.

It’s a Sin – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

It’s 1984, and distant rumours of the AIDS crisis are encroaching upon our character’s lives. Ritchie (a charismatic turn from Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander) still refuses to believe it. After all, media reports at the time were aggressively ill-informed and hysterical. How can gay people trust a society that despises them? But Jill (the delightful Lydia West) discovers the truth first-hand when she cares for a terrified friend with HIV. 

The second episode of Russell T. Davies’ striking drama reminds us of the fear, prejudice and paranoia which coursed through that not-so-long-ago age. His palpable anger strolls deftly hand in hand with characteristic wit and compassion. A gut-punching piece of work.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Celebrity Catchpoint – Saturday 16th January, BBC One

The latest series of this perfunctory gameshow is once again hosted by Paddy McGuinness. I’m no fan of this hack comedy chancer, this blandly avuncular serving droid, but I must admit that within the context of a show such as this, he’s a safe pair of hands. He’ll never be forgiven for Max & Paddy, Take Me Out or his appalling attempts at stand-up, but here he’s just an inoffensive man doing a thing. 

The latest batch of celebrities competing for charity were Dr Ranj Singh, Olympian Greg Rutherford and two faceless Radio 1 DJ’s. They answered general knowledge questions while catching large inflatable balls. Even McGuinness has grown tired of making nudge-nudge jokes about the latter.

Finding Alice – Sunday 17th January, STV

This black comedy-drama stars Keeley Hawes as a vaguely sympathetic version of Kirsty Allsopp. If you can imagine such a thing. It began with her moving into a dream home, ludicrously grand designed by her Kevin McCloud-esque husband: who then fell down his blatantly unsafe staircase and died. Did she push him? 

Writer Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly) turned this into a running gag. A conventional thriller would revolve around that mystery, but Finding Alice is more concerned with poking fun at upper middle-class pretentions and greed. Or it seems to be, at least so far. I found episode one quite amusing in its total lack of sentiment. Everything was played for mordant laughs. Let’s see how it goes.

HONOUR + FREDDIE FLINTOFF: LIVING WITH BULIMIA + US

This article was originally published in The Courier on 26th September 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

HONOUR

Monday, STV, 9pm

Keeley Hawes stars in this queasy factual drama about Banaz Mahmod, a young Iraqi Kurdish woman who was murdered by men from her own family. A so-called honour killing. Mahmod had been forced into a marriage with an abusive partner. When she fell in love with a good man, her father sanctioned a death sentence. Mahmod went to the police on five occasions. She received no assistance. She was ignored. Hawes plays the sympathetic, newly appointed senior police officer who did everything in her power to bring these men to justice. At first glance, Honour could be mistaken for a standard ITV crime drama. But there’s more to it than that. The tone is nuanced, angry, sensitive, despairing. It lingers.

FREDDIE FLINTOFF: LIVING WITH BULIMIA

Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Over 1.5 million people in the UK suffer from eating disorders. One in four of them are men. In this welcome report, cricketer Freddie Flintoff talks frankly about his own struggle with bulimia while going in search of more information about the illness. Flintoff struggled with fluctuating weight during his cricketing heyday. The tabloid press published terribly cruel articles about his appearance; that’s when he started to make himself vomit after meals. Outdated social norms discourage men from talking about physical and mental health issues, hence why Flintoff meets the mother of a young man who died as a result of his condition. The doctor didn’t listen. One hopes that things are improving. Programmes such as this can only help.

THE SHIPMAN FILES: A VERY BRITISH CRIME STORY

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

GP Harold Shipman murdered hundreds of his own patients, most of them elderly women. He is the most prolific serial killer in modern history. In this new series, documentary filmmaker Chris Wilson focuses on some of Shipman’s victims via interviews with their friends and families. What can their deaths tell us about our attitudes towards the elderly? And do those attitudes explain how Shipman got away with it for so long? The series suggests that local police and health authorities were slow to follow up on accusations. Wilson’s approach is commendably sensitive. Shipman’s face doesn’t appear until 20 minutes into the first episode, and barely at all after that. His crimes aren’t sensationalised, that’s not why Wilson is here.

LIFE

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

Written by Mike Bartlett of Doctor Foster fame, this promising new drama revolves around a large house in Manchester divided into four flats. The residents are lonely Belle (Victoria Hamilton, reprising her role from Doctor Foster), who reluctantly agrees to look after the daughter of her mentally ill sister; David (Adrian Lester), who meets a young woman while on holiday without his wife (Rachael Stirling); heavily pregnant Hannah, whose relationship with her new boyfriend is complicated by the presence of the man who fathered her child; and most compelling of all, Gail (Alison Steadman), who starts to feel that she’s wasted years of her life married to a passive-aggressive ‘japester’ (Peter Davison). There are twists. There are turns.

LAST WEEK’S TV

JONATHAN ROSS’ COMEDY CLUB

Saturday 19th September, STV

Whatever happened to Jonathan Ross? Sachsgate happened; his own stupid, hubristic fault. And here he is, in the autumn of his once occasionally interesting career, hosting a socially distanced stand-up showcase on ITV. A contractual obligation, a way of paying off the school fees. 

Younger readers may find this difficult to believe, but when the Letterman-influenced Ross first cropped up on Channel 4 in the late 1980s, he was a breath of fresh, flippant air. Subversive, even. Still, at least his Covid emergency Comedy Club allows very funny and inventive comedians such as Bec Hill to inveigle their way into the mainstream. Ross, for all his faults, loves comedy. 

But really, the cutaways to his guffawing face during the performances are so unnecessary. The cameras should be pointed at the acts, this is their moment. His potentate-like presence is a terrible distraction.

US

Sunday 20th September, BBC One

Urgh. This miserable comedy-drama stars Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves as a frightfully middle-class couple having one last summer together before splitting up. Writer David Nicholls, who adapted Us from his novel of the same name, is clearly labouring under a chronic delusion. He thinks we will care about these boring, charmless characters. Hollander and Reeves are good actors, but there’s nothing they can do to rescue this arid gust of middle-aged ennui. It’s what happens when comfortably sheltered TV executives commission programmes for the huddled masses.

TV Review: BABYLON and LINE OF DUTY

This article was originally published in the Courier on 15th February 2014.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Babylon: Sunday, Channel 4

Line of Duty: Wednesday, BBC2

Given the current weight of controversy surrounding police misconduct and media chicanery, you'd think an incisive black comedy satirising the whole sorry mess was just begging to be made. Unfortunately, Babylon isn't it.

Billed as a comedy-drama, the pilot failed to make much impact as either. Although clearly not intended as a rib-tickling farce, the stabs at humour were curiously mannered and self-conscious.

A scene in which Metropolitan Police chiefs were confused by incoming reports of a shooting spree was particularly laboured. And James Nesbitt, as a beleaguered police chief, delivering a convoluted description of what would befall him if he erroneously issued a citywide lock-down felt like an awkward barrage of watered-down The Thick of It.

This is hard to forgive, seeing as Babylon was written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, both of whom worked on Armando Iannucci's exemplary political satire. It was like a weak tribute to their own work. Creators of the excellent Peep Show, they also collaborated with Chris Morris on his thoughtful suicide bomber comedy Four Lions. Their CV speaks for itself.

And yet Babylon took tantalising elements from their previous efforts and squandered their potential. Poorly plotted and characterised, it was a tonally confused, boring mess.

Largely set in the Met's communications department, its tackling of PR, spin and corporate gobbledegook felt awfully rote and familiar. Lines such as “This is so far off the record even I don't know I'm saying it” were the stuff of half-hearted fan fiction.

Director Danny Boyle – yes, that one – did at least succeed in providing a surface sheen of energy to Babylon's hectic world of rolling news, camera phones and Twitter And the overall point about the police struggling to project an image of honesty and transparency in a world increasingly monitored by the media and a tech-savvy public was, while crushingly obvious, adequately delivered.

As a state-of-the-nation address, however, it was limp and underwhelming: a missed opportunity. Its depiction of the police may be fair – like any sprawling institution, it's populated by terrible idiots and well-meaning professionals – but Babylon rang hollow as comedy, character drama and social commentary.

By sheer coincidence, the ethical failings of the police were addressed in another TV highlight this week. But Line of Duty is a far more assured and enjoyable affair.

A satisfyingly self-contained story, series one of this dynamic thriller was hardly begging for a sequel. But on the evidence of episode one, series two promises to be just as compelling.

Once again based around a British police force anti-corruption unit, it introduced Keeley Hawes as an apparently conscientious officer suspected of involvement in the violent death of three colleagues and a mysterious witness.

As before, writer Jed Mercurio established an intriguing guessing game riddled with unexpected twists. The biggest shock of all, and one that left me grinning from its sheer audacity, was the cliffhanger death of Call the Midwife's Jessica Raine, who'd only just been introduced as a major new character.

Although I should've seen it coming – Mercurio pulled off the same trick in series one with Gina McKee's character – it still worked beautifully as a devilish bit of rug-pulling.

That barely controlled yet confident sense of anything-goes mania is what sets Line of Duty apart from the vast majority of UK cop shows. It shows Babylon how it's done.