Homeowner drama
Miniseries Our House sees a family woman find strangers moving into her home and her family are missing.
Season 1 Thursdays (from 25 August) M-Net (*101) 22:35
Buildings being hijacked is nothing new in South Africa. But it’s something of a shocker to working mom Fi Lawson (Tuppence Middleton, Riley in sci-fi series Sense8), because she allegedly sold them her property. “Fi has no idea what’s going on. She returns to her house after a weekend out of town and she finds a family moving into her property. She doesn’t know them but they say that she sold them the building and it’s been in the process for months,” explains Tuppence. “She’s confused and it’s stressing her because the only person who can make her feel sane and like she’s not imagining this is her husband Bram (Martin Compston, Steve Arnott in crime thriller series Line Of Duty) and he’s missing.” So what’s going on? Is Fi imagining everything, has she blanked out pieces of her memory, or is there something sinister going on?
COMING THROUGH
When Fi gets home from a work trip and pulls into her driveway, there’s a moving van parked outside and she thinks nothing of it. “She moves out of their way but they follow her to her front door. She’s not sure about things but then the people who’ve bought her house stop her in her tracks,” explains Tuppence. “They show her the deed of sale, it’s got her name and details and even her signature. But she has no recollection of ever having met them. She feels like nothing is making sense.”
And she’s not wrong, explains Martin. “Bram being missing should tell viewers something – that he’s got something to hide. He’s got a secret from his past that has come back to haunt him – and it’s going to cost him his family, their home, everything they’ve got.” But it turns out that Bram has more secrets hiding in his closet and while he first fears that this situation is linked to sleeping with one of his wife’s friends, the people who want to see the Lawsons crash and burn are more interested in the child’s death that Bram was involved in. “He’s kept this part of his life away from his family. Someone knows about his role in a little girl dying years earlier and they’re using that to blackmail Bram. And they’re going to tell his wife everything, so it’s going to impact the family more than anyone realises,” says Martin.
FAMILY MATTERS
Our House isn’t just a story about a wife and her husband trying to keep hold of something they’ve worked to create over the years – their family home – it’s also about relationships, says Tuppence. “The show is a story of a marriage and how secrets can destroy something as powerful as love. It’s about thinking that you know the person you’ve committed your life to and then discovering that you know absolutely nothing about them. It’s a scary thought but it happens more than we like to think.”
Also affected are the couple’s young sons Harry (Casper Knopf, John in streaming series Halo) and Leo (Tommy Finnegan, Callum in drama series Buffering). “The bad people who’re blackmailing Bram, who’ve sold Fi’s house, are taking aim at their children. When you try to control a parent, you use their children. There’s something evil about people who use young kids in crimes,” explains Martin. So who are the people behind the masks selling the house from under them? “They don’t just know Bram from witnessing the accident, they were there with him when it happened. They are people he knows well and he chose not to tell his wife about them…”
THE REAL DEAL
While the show is based on 2018 novel of the same title by Louise Candlish, a much-publicised house theft happened to a priest in Luton, England in 2021. “While working in Wales, someone stole my identity and then sold my house,” explains Reverend Mike Hall. “My neighbours knew I was away, then called to say that there was a moving van outside my house. When I arrived, the locks had been changed. The police said it wasn’t fraud, so I had to get lawyers involved to prove that I didn’t sell my property and try to get the ‘new owners’ to stop their nonsense.”