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The Beast Must Die review – Cush Jumbo plots grief-fuelled revenge

BritBox’s first original drama is a taut thriller, with Jumbo playing the mother of a hit-and-run victim who hunts down odious prime suspect Jared Harris

I love a drama premise you can really get behind. The Beast Must Die (BritBox) follows the hunt by bereaved mother Frances (Cush Jumbo) for the driver of the vehicle that killed her six-year-old son in a hit-and-run on the Isle of Wight three months earlier. Partly because the police have failed to find the culprit and partly so that when she does, she can kill him. As she points out, if the boy had been killed by someone with his own hands instead of with his car, there would be a national outcry, and no one would rest until the beast was caught.

By the end of the first two episodes made available for streaming (the remaining three will drop weekly on Thursdays), Frances has followed up on clues and extracted information from repair shops about damaged bumpers. She has also befriended the emergent key witness Lena (Mia Tomlinson) by pretending she is doing research for a novel about a young woman similarly trying to make it as an actress/gig-economy worker, and is sitting down for dinner with the man apparently responsible, like an avenging angel at the feast.

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