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TV extra Let the guessing games begin – riveting crime drama is back
Secrets of the National Trust with Alan Titchmarsh (C5, 9pm)
The presenter travels to Greater Manchester to visit Dunham Massey, a Georgian mansion once home to the Earl of Stamford. During the mid-19th century, Dunham Massey passed into the hands of the teenage seventh earl, George Harry Grey, who let the estate go into decline, but the mansion was revived as a military hospital during the First World War under the stewardship of the Countess Penelope. Alan explores this grand house, and uncovers secret store rooms, reads first-hand wartime accounts and even meets the family’s butler.
Killed By My Debt (BBC1, 10.45pm)
Factual drama telling the story of Jerome Rogers and the destructive power of debt. In January 2015, the south London 19-year-old finally got what he’d been working for – a new motorbike and his first real job as a courier. However, in the hands of bailiffs, two £65 traffic fines rose to more than a thousand pounds. Some weeks, his take-home pay in his zero-hours job was as low as £12. Under the
CRIME drama fans rejoice – ITV gripper Unforgotten is back with a host of new suspects to try to pin down. The prime-time hit – penned by screenwriter Chris Lang and hailed as the “best detective drama of the decade” – will see dream team Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart and Detective Inspector Sunny Khan (played by Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar respectively) return for a third run, as they investigate another emotionally charged cold case.
“We discover a body that has been buried beside a motorway,” Bhaskar, 54, reveals of the six-part run.
“The motorway construction workers discover it while doing some repair work on the road and we then find out that it was a young girl who went missing at the turn of the millennium – New Year’s Eve, 1999.”
It differs from previous seasons, he says, “because in this one the investigation centres around four friends and their families who rented a holiday home near where a young girl went missing”.
Much like its predecessors, the latest Unforgotten instalment plays host to a line-up of acclaimed British actors – and what a selection it is.
Alex Jennings, Kevin McNally, Neil Morrissey and James Fleet join forces to star as four former school friends who, having stood by one another through thick and thin, find their relationships tested to the limit.
For Walker, 48, welcoming newbies into the fold is one of her favourite aspects of the role.
“I actually did my first ever job with James Fleet in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which I am in for a blink!” she recalls.
pressure of his debt, Jerome went to the woods where he’d played as a child and committed suicide. With Chance Perdomo. A search for the missing pupils and the governess finds no trace of them at Hanging Rock, and Hester tries her best to contain mounting hysteria at the school. She believes young orphan Sara may know something about the disappearance. A young Englishman, the Honourable Michael Fitzhubert, was the last person to see the girls alive, and when the search is abandoned, he returns to Hanging Rock to continue to look for them and governess Miss Greta McGraw. Starring Natalie Dormer and Harrison Gilbertson.
“I met James there and have done plays with him since. I think he is absolutely remarkable in this show.
“I had also worked with Alex Jennings on Spooks, but I hadn’t worked with Neil Morrissey or Kevin McNally before, so that was exciting.”
While the whodunit drama is obliged to check certain boxes – there’s a body, tick, and suspects, tick – that’s where the similarity ends.
First off, the case investigated this series is the most recent to date, with the victim having gone missing only 18 years earlier – previous series