DEBORAH’S MUST-WATCH TV CLASSICS

Mrs Wilson (2018)

Ruth Wilson plays her own grandmother, Alison Wilson, who discovers, after 22 years of marriage, that her husband is a bigamist in a beautifully acted spy yarn inspired by real events. The first episode (of three) opens with Mrs Wilson as a suburban wife who works as a secretary and uses her lunch hour to pop home and make something for her husband Alec (Iain Glen). Alec is a writer, but just as he’s finishing his latest book he suffers a fatal heart attack. The next evening there is a knock at the door, and there’s a woman who says she has come to collect Alec’s things, claiming he was her husband. And so the story begins. There are flashbacks showing how Alec and Alison met during the war in the secret service. Alec was charming even if he was always going off on missions, if they really were missions. Meanwhile, in the present, there’s the funeral, with Alec’s ‘other’ wife, Gladys, demanding Alec’s body. But Alison is not above lying, either. Needless to say, Ruth Wilson (left) is terrific. Just watching her face as it scrolls through every emotion, from joy to shock to grief, is a pleasure. Fascinating.