Envy, turmoil and resentment make for the perfect recipe in this Imelda Staunton-led drama, which takes in a widow’s new romance, a mountain of family secrets – and a dead body
What do you want to see you through the last dark, dismal days of winter? A rattling good yarn by the fireside, that’s what. A rich, meaty plot stew to go with the one warming your lap of an evening. And ITV has provided one, in the form of toothsome new drama Flesh and Blood, served up in deeply satisfying portions across four consecutive nights this week. Grab a spoon and hunker down.
In a beautifully appointed home on the picturesque Sussex coast where she has lived for 40 years, dwells glamorous Vivien (Francesca Annis, so things are already BRILLIANT), a mother of three adult children who was widowed 18 months ago after an apparently happy marriage for nearly half a century to their father, Terry. Next door, in a slightly less well-appointed house in which she has lived for even longer, is unglamorous Mary (Imelda Staunton, so things just got EVEN BETTER) who – in the absence, we infer, of a family of her own though she seems perfectly content tending her garden – has always been a part of her neighbours’ lives and has grown deeply fond of them all. Nothing she says or does contradicts this and yet somehow, because Staunton is more necromancer than mere actor, she nevertheless radiates hints of darkness that have you biting your nails long before we see her take in and steam open a parcel meant for Vivien, and wear the dressing gown contained therein to eat her tea.
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