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Ordinary Lies Series 2 changes location to sports clothing company Coopers, and specifically, the warehouse and call centre behind it.
I loved the first series (even the performance from the usually-irritating Jason Manford), and once again, each episode is set around one particular employee, the first this time being head of sales, Joe (Con O’Neill). He’s one of those people in an office who believes himself to be hugely popular, really thinks he’s it, telling jokes and assuming everyone cares.
He has a trip or fall at work, doesn’t call Claims Direct, but instead suspects his wife (Jill Halfpenny) is having an affair. This develops into an obession as he effectively recreates Sliver in his own home, and finds out things he’d rather he didn’t know. And when Joe does something which he thinks will help him get some answers, you’re left thinking if he’s bitten off more than he can chew. And I wondered what he had been chewing – does Con O’Neill’s voice normally sound like that?
Like I said, I really enjoyed the first series, but this first episode felt a bit pedestrian for a fair time, and a brief moment where there was an interesting tertiary character like an installation engineer didn’t expand any further when I thought it might bring something new to the table. However, it eventually developed into something I wasn’t expecting, so kudos to writer/creator Danny Brocklehurst for that, but I would’ve liked more throughout the episode rather than cramming everything important into the final 15 minutes, especially in order to make the episode stronger.
Episode 2 will go into Holly’s story, portrayed by Kimberley Nixon, where she’s obsessed with social media and also has relationship issues – seems to be a theme, given that we’ve briefly seen Ally (Jennifer Nicholas) fresh out of a marriage and having a dalliance with new guy Ash (Luke Bailey) – and it’s good to see Ms Nixon given more meat of a story in a drama, since recently I’ve seen her in things like New Blood where she barely seemed to feature.
Ordinary Lies Series 2 is available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of its release on November 28th. The episode is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until November 17th. Also, click on the top image for the full-size version.
Series 1 is still available to buy on DVD.
Episode 1 Score: 7/10
Director: Misha Manson-Smith
Producer: Emily Feller
Writer/Creator: Danny Brocklehurst
Cast
Joe: Con O’Neill
Carly: Catherine Ayers
Toke: Joel Fry
Holly: Kimberley Nixon
Wendy: Rebekah Staton
Belinda: Jill Halfpenny
Neil: Noel Sullivan
Zoe: Zoe Hall
Jenna: Angela Griffin
Ally: Jennifer Nicholas
Ash: Luke Bailey
Ruth: Kezrena James
Ray: Ian Davies
Fletch: Matt Di Angelo
Grey-haired man: Ioan Hefin
Tommy: Aled Herbert
Kim: Rachel Isaac
Finn: James King
Mr. Security: Rhys Ap William
Warehouse worker: Sylvester Livingstone
Workman: Ceri Murphy
Call Centre Staff: Kumud Pant
Karl: Gareth Pierce
Caz: Elen Rhys
Victoria: Victoria Maclean (uncredited)
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.