Keeley and Joanna are just FAB

PICK OF THE WEEK

FINDING ALICE Sunday, ITV, 9pm

It should be a moment of joy for Alice (Keeley Hawes). After years of planning and building, she’s finally moving into the ultra-modern dream home that her property developer husband Harry (Jason Merrells) has created in an idyllic country setting for the couple and their teenage daughter Charlotte (Isabella Pappas, right with Hawes and Joanna Lumley).

Yet it’s not very long before any ambitions they harboured of Grand Designs-style bliss come crashing down. First there are the technical pitfalls to be found only in an oh-so-chic and gizmo-laden ‘smart’ house: just how on earth can you get the curtains to operate – and where exactly is the fridge?

But then comes far worse than just a few small technical glitches. Only hours after arriving, Harry takes a tumble off the sleekly elegant, if perhaps not entirely practical, bannisterless stairs – and suddenly he’s dead before the family have even spent a night in their new home.

The premature demise of her previously healthy, 48-year-old husband leaves Alice reeling. Now, as she learns that Harry had left their finances in disarray and begins to uncover yet more of his secrets, she is forced to wonder how much she really knew about the man she thought she loved – and has to consider that there may be more to his death than just a straightforward, if tragic, accident.

Thus the stage is set for a sometimes mercilessly black comedy drama, with Hawes as a widow finding her way alone in the world – and if that sounds curiously reminiscent of her role in The Durrells, note that this six-part series comes from the same writing team of Roger Goldby and Simon Nye.

A superb cast also features Joanna Lumley as Alice’s remorselessly catty and hard-bitten mother, who greets her grieving daughter by asking ‘What are you wearing?’, while Nigel Havers plays her put-upon and useless father Roger. The complications of Harry’s estate mean that Alice can expect little charity either from her seemingly mild-mannered parents-in-law, Minnie (Gemma Jones) and Gerry (Kenneth Cranham), and what little solace she can find comes in the surprising friendship she strikes up with Nathan (Rhashan Stone), the mortuary attendant caring for her late husband’s body.

After Ashes To Ashes, Line Of Duty and Bodyguard, Hawes once again proves herself one of the most commanding and versatile leading women on our screens, anchoring a drama that bounces merrily between raw emotion and sheer farce.

How will Keeley Hawes’s widow deal with a catty mum (a brilliant Joanna Lumley) and awkward daughter in this bittersweet drama?