Three-mendous

STV 9pm IF YOU’RE looking for reliable credentials to indicate that a drama is going to be a belter, one of them is that Kay Mellor has written it.

She’s been behind the likes of Band of Gold, Fat Friends, Playing the Field, The Syndicate, In the Club and the Beeb’s recent Love, Lies and Records.

And now Kay has written and directed this new drama, focusing on women of a certain age.

The cast is led by Downton’s Phyllis Logan, Blackadder’s Miranda Richardson and My Family’s Zoe Wanamaker.

They play lifelong friends, Linda, Sue and Gail, whose realities find them leading very different lives – but who also have more in common than it might first appear.

While Sue is impeccably glamorous, running a bridal magazine with her handsome ex John (Anthony Head), Gail is rather more downtrodden, with a son who’s just out of prison and her second divorce looming.

Linda seems to be living a happy life – she’s married with two kids and is celebrating her wedding anniversary with a cruise.

But all that is shattered when her husband Micky appears to fall overboard to his death.

And it’s his memorial service that brings the friends together again. These women are from the “sandwich generation” – looking after ageing parents and kids who haven’t left the nest yet.

And thanks to Mellor’s trademark northern warmth and her talent for finding the extraordinary in the seemingly very ordinary – not to mention great performances from the three leading ladies – this is relatable and entertaining stuff.