The Guest introduces us to Gabrielle Creevy (15 Days) as Ria Powell, a cleaner, but one who… WEARS OUTSIDE SHOES INSIDE THE HOUSE! The sole of a shoe contains around 400,000 particles of faeces! THAT’S NOT CLEAN!
Anyhoo, after inadvertently stealing from the food donation point in a supermarket, Ria attracts the attention of wealthy Fran (Eve Myles – Eat Locals), who not only gives her a new cleaning job when she’s just lost one, but also rather takes her under her wing, trying to get Ria to stand up for herself.
However, when it comes to the terms of employment, she stipulates NEVER to clean in the guest house as it’s never used… but then she sees someone walking about inside. Ooooh, spooky!
Meanwhile, Ria’s boyfriend is a waste of space, so no wonder she casts her eye further out, in the direction of Mike (Joseph Ollman), leading to the employer/employee line blurring further as Fran lends Ria some clothes for one date, but nothing ever goes to plan… leading to a situation where it does get bloody ridiclous and creates one hell of a mess, with some CGI that looks as dodgy as Grok’s free plan!
But you’ll find out why when you come to it, and there is other stuff to discover, but like the late, great Russell Harty’s observation on life before Coronation Street, it doesn’t amount to much.
In fact, I’m sure I’ve seen this type of drama before, where rich woman takes poor woman under her wing, and gives her gifts and so on. I can’t quite put my finger on it, though, unless it’s a form of Pretty Woman.
However, as well as The Guest being complete nonsense, there’s also some very strong Welsh accents in this drama, and the preview didn’t have any subtites available, so it is difficult to fully tune-in sometimes.
UPDATE ON EPISODE 1 AFTER BROADCAST:
The Guest begins tomorrow night on BBC1 at 9pm, and will air each Monday.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
All episodes will be available on day one on BBC iPlayer.
Director: Ashley Way
Producer: Karen Lewis
Writer/Creator: Matthew Barry
Music: Blair Mowat
Cast:
Fran Sharp: Eve Myles
Ria Powell: Gabrielle Creevy
Lee Mace: Sion Daniel Young
Simon Sharp: Julian Lewis Jones
Sharla: Bethan Mary-James
Mike Rice: Joseph Ollman
Derek Abbott: Clive Russell
Penny: Lola Waters
Helen: Catherine Ayers
Richard Abbott: Emun Elliott
Eleri Abbott: Kimberley Nixon
Jenny: Amy Griffiths
Gwesyn: Samuel Creasey
Boats: Darren Evans
Gaynor: Victoria Donovan
DS Alex Flynn: Amy Beth Hayes
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.