What to watch
Paula BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Can one moment of madness derail your life? That’s the central premise behind BBC Two’s tense crime thriller Paula, which sees a young chemistry teacher played by rising star Denise Gough dragged into an increasingly dangerous situation following one seemingly out-of-character decision.
As a premise it’s nothing new, but Paula is scripted by Conor Mcpherson, author of hit plays The Weir and The Seafarer and a man who enjoys taking risks with genre and throwing unusual, often supernatural elements into the mix. While not as obviously a ghost story as some of his earlier work, Paula is still overlaid with menace from the start with even the most straightforward interactions carrying a hint of something uneasy at their core. Paula herself is outwardly confident, competent and good at her job, yet her smooth exterior masks a growing number of problems from the secret affair she is unable to end to her difficult attitudes towards her family. Gough does a fine job of capturing her character’s increasingly off-kilter emotions and there is strong support from Tom Hughes as a dangerous drifter with an equally complicated family life and troubles of his own. Sarah Hughes