Airdate: The Town

There’s a very good mystery drama starting this week straight after Broadchurch, called The Town.

This ITV drama is only three episodes long, but has just enough intrigue and is nicely performed, with a cast led by Andrew Scott -otherwise known as Moriarty in Sherlock. And yes that’s Martin Clunes as a local Mayor.

Be warned -it’s a bit a dramatic opening…

Following his parents’ apparent joint suicide, 30‐year‐old Mark Nicholas(Andrew Scott) returns home to Renton,the provincial market town he grew up in.

After 10 years building a new life in London, coming home proves difficult for Mark; he always had a strained relationship with his parents, his grandmother Betty (Julia McKenzie) now lives in his bedroom and he barely knows his teenage sister Jodie (Avigail Tlalim).

Intent on leaving again as soon as possible, Mark instead starts to be drawn back into the life he left behind. Most of his school friends still live in the town but he finds it hard to re‐connect with them. Hardest of all is meeting his first love Alice (Charlotte Riley). They still have strong feelings for each other, but Alice is now settled and married, with a child.

Mark has to decide whether he should move home permanently to look after his family, or leave them and continue as he had before. The place he used to call home now seems small and unfamiliar – and full of secrets. And when Mark finds suspicious texts sent to his parents, he begins to suspect they were murdered instead.

Friday 16 August, 9.20pm ABC1