The Scottish Mail on Sunday

Dial 999 for TERROR

An emergency call operator hears a voice that draws him into a dark mystery in this spine-tingling new thriller

- Sunday to Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm

Working as an emergency call handler, you soon discover that just about every day is packed with extraordin­ary events taking place at the other end of the phone.

Gabe (Iain De Caestecker, above) quickly finds this out after starting a job at a frenetical­ly busy control room in the heart of Glasgow.

It’s not long before his colleagues are congratula­ting him on his ‘first baby’, after he talks a couple through the delivery because the ambulance is too far away to get them to the hospital in time.

But then one day an emergency call comes through that changes everything in an instant – and puts Gabe at the heart of an emerging drama as he’s on the phone sitting in front of his monitor. A woman is speaking, sounding utterly distraught as she confesses that she’s killed a man.

She refuses to give her name, say where she is, or reveal the name of the victim. But as Gabe tries to calm her down and get more informatio­n, while his supervisor listens in, he suddenly hears her utter the shocking, chilling words: ‘Gabo, is that you?’

He’s completely stunned. How could the caller possibly have got his name? And can Gabe be honest with his colleagues and the police about how much he knows?

So begins a nerve-jangling thriller unfolding over three nights. The intricatel­y plotted storyline exerts an increasing­ly iron grip on our attention as it drip-feeds us with revelation­s about Gabe and his childhood that might just help to explain the mystery. And as the plot develops, we also learn that Gabe may not be the only one in the control room with secrets to hide…

From the producers of Sherlock and Dracula and also starring Sharon Rooney (Finding Alice, My Big Fat Diary) as a police detective, alongside

Joanna Vanderham as 999 caller Sam (above right), The Control Room is a thriller in the classic Hitchcocki­an tradition.

It keeps us guessing almost all the way as we have to ask whether Gabe is an innocent hero who’s been caught up in the misdeeds of others – and if so, who can he trust? – or does his anxious, increasing­ly unsettled persona betray the guilt of a man trying to escape the dark chapters of his own past?

Settle in for an engrossing tale in which the tension mounts to an almost unbearable level… and pray that the biggest emergency you’ll have this week is finding out how it all ends.

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