Jessica Hynes plays Carol, a supermarket checkout worker who dreams of stand-up comedy; Douglas Hodge is Ted, a widowed cabbie convinced he is being stalked; Georgina Campbell’s Rochelle, a bright sixth-former, is mourning her brother’s gang killing; and Billy Matthews’s 13-year-old Alfie just wants admission to the crew that controls the De Beauvoir estate. Over four consecutive March nights in 2012 their separate stories overlap, each episode locking to a single point of view and revealing how a small act, a glance or a refusal, can ricochet through a community.
Paul Smith’s scripts were shot entirely on location around Hackney, using the De Beauvoir squares for the fictional Lakemead estate, the neon of Mill Hill’s Broadway for Alfie’s nightclub, and the Sir Richard Steele pub on Haverstock Hill for Carol’s disastrous open-mic debut. Classical singer Errollyn Wallen’s “Daedalus” bookends every hour, the only music the series allows beneath its traffic-heavy soundscape.
BBC One stripped the four episodes across one week, a scheduling choice that emphasised the claustrophobia of a city where lives intersect without ever truly connecting. Repeated on London Live in 2014, the serial never gained a second run, leaving its quartet suspended at the moment their paths diverge again.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2012
Created by: Paul Smith
Writer(s): Paul Smith
Producer(s): Ewan Marshall
Main Cast
Douglas Hodge as Ted
Jessica Hynes as Carol
Ben Hull as Barney Campbell
Don Gilet as DC Hutton
Kellie Bright as Dawn
Marianne Graffam as Karin - Social Worker
Neil Stuke as Kenny
Saskia Reeves as Sally
Georgina Campbell as Rochelle
Billy Matthews as Alfie
Ami Metcalf as Shannon
Joshua Osei as Jake
