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The Light in the Hall centres around Sharon (Joanna Scanlan – The Larkins, The Accident), whose daughter, Ela, was murdered almost 20 years ago at the age of 15, and the murderer, Joe (Iwan Rheon), is due for a parole hearing. Like with Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, he’s never identified where her body has been buried. He claims not to remember, but I would doubt evil would be able to forget.
Naturally, between Sharon and her other daughter, Mags (Siwan Morris), they’re still struggling to come to terms with it all, and I figure guess it’s one of those situations where they never will until they get some sort of closure.
Plus, thanks to Joe’s actions, his sister, Shelley, left and has never been seen since.
Along the way in the opener, Sharon holds a local meeting for other residents who have lost a loved one in tragic circumstances, while Cat (Alexandra Roach – Utopia) is a journalist looking into it, who was also Ela’s best friend at school; and everywhere Sharon looks, she sees her lost daughter, played by Ella Peel.
So far I’ve just seen the opening episode, but it’s a very slow opener, with Joe getting little more to do than move into a halfway house, to get adjusted back to living outside prison, but I’ll give it a second to see how it fares.
As for the title? Ever since Ela was no longer with her, Sharon put that light on and wil never switch it off.
Annoyingly, as I mentioned in the trailer reaction, below, this is one of those dramas where they make the weird decision with weird camera angles, so when two people are having a conversation, standing opposite each other, one person is shown on the right-hand side of the picture, ‘talking’ to the right, with the other person on the left-hand side, ‘talking’ to the left of the picture. Why do dramas do this? That’s just weird.
UPDATE: I ended up watching the second episode when it was broadcast, but while it was okay… I wasn’t hugely gripped by it. I see the Torygraph aren’t exactly big on the series as a whole, however, so that appears to answer whether it’s worth sticking with or not.
Also, I started to watch episode 3 when broadcast, but I found my attention drifting, so I’m out.
The Light in the Hall is on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm. It’s already available on All 4 in full, but airs on TV on Wednesday and Thursday nights over four weeks. I presume they didn’t go for Monday and Tuesday, so as to avoid clashing with BBC1’s Silent Witness. You can pre-order it on DVD, ahead of its release on March 20th.
Director: Andy Newbery
Producer: Eryl Huw Phillips
Writer: Regina Moriarty
Sharon: Joanna Scanlan
Joe: Iwan Rheon
Cat: Alexandra Roach
Dai: Morgan Hopkins
Memet Ozdemir: Ali Alibora
Judge Rowe: Anita Reynolds
Young Joe: Dylan Jones
Ela: Ella Peel
Ceri-Ann: Shelley Rees
Bronwen: Andria Doherty
Maddie: Llinor ap Gwynedd
Steve: Ben Bailey Smith
Mags: Siwan Morris
Greta: Annes Elwy
DCI Parry: Ioan Hefin
Sali: Catherine Ayers
Rhydian: Gareth Elis
Sasha: Lily Beau Conway
Young Shelley: Mari Ann Bull
Phil: Alex Harries
Eilis: Delyth Wyn
Ian: Aled Pugh
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.