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Flesh And Blood is a new four-part drama on ITV with the premise that someone’s lying injured on the beach, but who? Ah, there’s the rub!
And no, I’m not going to tell you. That’s for you to find out when the drama reveals the answer, because that’s how television works.
Okay, well, I can safely say that it’s not Mary (Imelda Staunton), because she’s being interviewed by the cops, including DI Lineham (David Bamber – Inside No.9: Death Be Not Proud), about all the hoo-hah that’s gone on in her neighbour’s house.
Then the plot goes back to when this all began, as recently-widowed Viv (Francesca Annis) has a new man in her life, Mark (Stephen Rea – The Stranger), much to the annoyance of her three children – Jake (Russell Tovey – Years And Years), Helen (Claudie Blakley) and Natalie (Lydia Leonard). Okay, so Viv’s been on her own for 18 months, so she has every right to think about spending time with someone else as a fair amount of time has passed. However, her children think he’s only come into her life to cash-in on her loneliness and her fantastic house, and Jake, especially, because he’s in debt and having to live month-to-month with his gym instruction business, not to mention his extra-curricular activities with ‘student’ Stella (Sharon Small, now upgrading to MILF status).
Based on the first ep, everyone has something going on in their lives, as you’ll discover, but it’s all a bit soap opera-like, which is why I stopped watching most of those (only Doctors survives!). Plus, you can tell Mark is a rotter, but how long will it be before everyone realises? And is he really the type of man who’ll do such things as we’re led to believe, or is that part of the story’s misdirection?
Either way, I’m glad all 4 episodes are being shown within the same week, or at least with dramas, I would like all such series to be available on day one when they’re intended for weekly broadcast. That’s because it’s what we’re used to, now, and when it came to the recent White House Farm, I wanted to see them all in one go, but that was a LONG six weeks. I know this is how things used to be done, but we’re now in the age of Netflix, where we expect the entire ‘boxset’ in one go.
I have now seen the full series, but I’ve just given an overall score for it below, and am not going to give any spoilers about it.
Flesh And Blood is broadcast each weeknight from Monday to Thursday at 9pm on TV. It’s available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of its release on March 2nd.
After broadcast, each episode will be on the ITV Hub.
Series Score: 6/10
Director: Louise Hooper
Producer: Letitia Knight
Writer: Sarah Williams
Cast:
Vivien: Francesca Annis
Mark: Stephen Rea
Mary: Imelda Staunton
Jake: Russell Tovey
Helen: Claudie Blakley
Natalie: Lydia Leonard
Lily: Grace Hogg-Robinson
Leila: Lara Rossi
Stella: Sharon Small
DI Lineham: David Bamber
George: Keir Charles
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.