PICK OF THE DAY

PAULA, 9PM, BBC2

THIS dark (in all senses) threepart drama by award-winning playwright Conor McPherson gets off to an intriguing and unsettling start. Denise Gough plays Paula, a secondaryschool chemistry teacher who opens a deadly can of worms when she indulges in a misguided one-night stand. A creepy young chancer with a disquietingly unconventional domestic set-up, James (Tom Hughes, pictured with Gough) has not a moral bone in his body and is apparently haunted by something dark in his past. Before long, Paula realises that she’s got herself entangled with the wrong person — with no way out.