Sheridan’s LESSONS IN LUST

She plays an inspirational teacher whose chaotic private life lands her in deep trouble. But did she really sleep with a teenage pupil?

Sheridan Smith proves once again just how very good she is at playing endearingly relatable characters who are burdened by human fallibility, guilt and remorse, in a gripping psychological drama over four nights this week.

She plays secondary school English teacher Jenna Garvey, an inspirational presence in the classroom with a captivating love of her subject.

Her private life is a raucous mess, though; on evenings out she trawls the clubs for pick-ups and drinks too much for her own good. But somehow she’s able to work despite her hangovers, and just as long as it doesn’t interfere with her teaching, surely her personal affairs are no one else’s business?

When the headmaster needs to appoint a new head of the English department, he chooses her, naturally. That’s good reason to go out and celebrate at the pub with her colleagues, and as the evening goes on a few of them head on to a nightclub – one that happens to be frequented by pupils from the school.

She’s soon knocking back the drink rather too frenziedly, though at this stage you’d think that the worst price she’ll be paying is a thumping headache in the morning.

But when she arrives at school the next day, she’s shocked to be told by the head that she’s been suspended for ‘inappropriate behaviour’, and minutes later she’s being arrested by police under the Sexual Offences Act and taken in for questioning.

The claim that might not only end her career but even see her go to prison is that she had sex with one of her pupils the previous night. As the questions keep coming in the interview room, Jenna has to admit she has little memory of what happened.

It would be a shattering breach of her moral code, but is it possible that she did go with a teenage boy?

So the stage is set for a thriller in which Jenna must question everything she thought she knew about herself – but also work out why a shattering lie has been made up about her if the story turns out not to be true.

This is a classic role for Sheridan Smith (above, with Kelvin Fletcher as a fellow teacher and Samuel Bottomley as the pupil). Quite where your sympathies are going to fall finally will be decided when the complete truth is told: but at least you won’t have to wait too long to find out, with the full story played out across four consecutive nights.