Drama Matters

The BBC and other terrestrial channels may have more or less given up on single plays, but it’s a different story on Sky. Drama Matters is a series of five plays starring top actresses and written by leading female screenwriters, showing over the next few weeks. It begins on Tuesday with The Psychopath Next Door by Julie Rutterford (Trollied, Ashes To Ashes). Anna Friel (above) stars as cool, glamorous, thoroughly evil Eve Wright, a psychiatrist (or is she?) who moves into a new neighbourhood and sets about destroying the lives of a group of close friends. On Thursday comes a very different kind of drama, Lawless, in which Suranne Jones plays a newly appointed judge embarking on her first day in the post. Impressive stuff. Tuesday and Thursday, 9pm, Sky Living. Nigel Andrew