KATHRYN FLETT’S My TV Week: This conniving conman seduced me too
The following events are based on a pack of lies
Tuesday, 9pm, BBC1
Have you been longing for a TV drama about compulsive control and narcissistic personality disorder this holiday season? No me neither!
Mind you, an extreme narcissist’s superpower is to get victims to do things they never imagined they would do, while at the same time handing over control of their lives… which, oddly enough, is exactly what happened when I got into the first episode of this addictive episode. five-part.
A whole day went by, I had put everything on iPlayer and was now so behind with work/life that I was frantically catching up, wondering how I got myself into such a mess. Ironic, right?
In BBC1’s The Following Events Are Based On A Pack Of Lies, Alice (pictured), played by Rebekah Staton, finds herself up against her ex-husband Rob, a manipulative con artist who stole her family’s money
Cheryl Harker, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is a bestselling novelist who also falls prey to Rob’s schemes
First things first. Alice (Rebekah Staton) and bestselling author Cheryl Harker (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) are two women who have little in common apart from their connection to a manipulative con artist, Rob (Alistair Petrie) – whom Alice randomly bumps into in Oxford, where she lives with her. . partner, young son and father.
It turned out that Alice and Rob were married before he disappeared years ago with her family’s savings, destroying her parents’ marriage and Alice’s self-confidence.
Now working as a PA, Alice dreams of becoming a fashion designer and (having long assumed he was dead, or dead to her) is shocked to discover that Rob has reinvented himself as Dr. Rob Chance, a famous ‘eco-entrepreneur’. affiliated with the University of Oxford.
What the hell is he planning?
Answer: After some light stalking, she discovers that he is busy seducing the successful, wealthy, independent but lonely (she recently widowed) novelist Cheryl, who is sadly rattling her poodle through a fantastic mock castle.
At this point, Alice decides it’s finally time for revenge…
My only major criticism of this low-key, highly entertaining take on a very real and brutal form of psychological manipulation (a tricky balancing act mastered by the writers, sisters Penelope and Ginny Skinner) is that it could easily have lost a major role. . hours of Byzantine plot development (as well as part of the extended cast) without affecting the storyline.
Despite the abundance of evidence that Dr. Rob is a contender, it takes Cheryl an impossibly long time to accept being played – and even before Alice decides to convince her.
Alistair Petrie plays the “evil and manipulative” Dr. Chance, with Kathryn praising him for being “so phenomenally watchable” in the role
Alice takes the time to insinuate herself so far into Cheryl’s life that things get a little weird; the domino is a frenzied rush to the denouement.
Nevertheless, it is another blood-curdling drama from production company Sister (Chernobyl, The Split, This Is Going To Hurt, Giri/Haji…) and the last half hour is also very clever, funny and sobering – no spoilers here.
We get great performances from both leading ladies (and the aforementioned fine but unnecessarily large supporting cast, including Sir Derek Jacobi), but it’s fitting that the star of the show is the narcissist himself.
Alistair Petrie as the evil and manipulative Dr. Chance is so phenomenally observable in his gift for a role that you might find yourself completely enticed by him too.
Follow this tricky, twisted game of catch-me-if-you-can on iPlayer – trust me, it’s a treat.
IT’S TELLY’S WARMEST BLOODBATH
Midsomer Murders: The Witches of Angel’s Rise
ITVx
In the delayed final episode of the 22nd series of Midsomer, the ever stoic DCI Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and his sidekick DS Winter (Nick Hendrix) investigated the death of young Tilly Mulroney, who had been stabbed and surrounded by ritual symbols.
How did Tilly’s brutal murder relate to the dysfunctional Saint-Stephens family, who were busy organizing a paranormal fayre in honor of their daughter Bea, who had mysteriously died three years earlier?
And why had Peter Saint-Stephens missed out on a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in string theory?
As always, the questions piled higher than the bodies. Why is pathologist Dr. Fleur (Annette Badland) always so cheerful?
Could Janine Duvitski (as clairvoyant author Hattie Bainbridge) raise the bar for overacting even higher? And why was Holly Willoughby feralting some beavers?
The answers to all those questions? It does not matter!
The first episode of Midsomer aired in March 1997, when the Spice Girls were #1 and the first book about a particular young wizard would soon become a bestseller.
And during the intervening years, whenever Britain’s busiest killing fields reappeared on our screens, it suddenly felt like all was right with the world.
If you haven’t been pampered in a while, dip your toes in television’s hottest carnage.
In The Woman In The Wall (Sunday, 9pm, BBC1), Lorna is haunted by her past: as a pregnant teenager she was forced into one of Ireland’s notorious convent-run Magdalene Laundries
In The woman in the wall (Sunday, 9pm, BBC1), Lorna is haunted by her past: as a pregnant teenager she was forced into one of Ireland’s notorious monastic-run Magdalene Laundries.
In the present, Lorna (Ruth Wilson) is approached by someone who says she has news about her baby.
But by the time I got to the part where Lorna, after finding a woman’s body in her house, hides it behind her living room wall, it all felt a little Banshees Of Inisherin without the wry laugh (or ass). ).
I realized I wasn’t in the mood for stories (no matter how good) about babies born to traumatized mothers.
A grounding influence
In At Home With The Furys (Netflix), Tyson Fury’s wife Paris brings her husband down to earth when he speculates about buying Blackpool airport
“Maybe I’ll buy Blackpool airport,” Tyson Fury tells his wife Paris. ‘You’re not buying Blackpool airport!’ ‘Why not?’ “Because you don’t need an airport!” Reasonable!
The boxing champ could probably afford one, but Paris is clearly used to the bipolar highs and lows of the self-proclaimed Gypsy King, as seen in the dazzlingly entertaining At Home With The Furys (Netflix).
It’s a show that proves the old adage that behind every great man is a great woman turning the plates… with her curling iron on standby.