Daniel Brocklehurst’s 12-part anthology tracks the domino effect of workplace fibs, first through JS Motors’ forecourt in Cheshire, then the Coopers Outdoors depot in Wales. Each hour-long episode spotlights one employee: receptionists Michelle Keegan and Cherrelle Skeete posing as Ibiza party girls while smuggling cocaine from the Dominican, secretary Sally Lindsay risking blackmail for sex outside her celibate marriage, mechanic Shazad Latif grooming his boss’s 15-year-old daughter, and salesman Mackenzie Crook staging a car-jacking to pay off the partner of the woman who bore his secret son. The second series relocates to Cardiff, where new secrets fester among the sports-goods crew, but the formula remains: a lie is introduced, escalates and detonates within six episodes.
BBC One commissioned the drama from Nicola Shindler’s Red Production Company, transmitting series one from 17 March 2015 and series two from 11 October 2016. Directors including John McKay and Juliet May shoot on location in Warrington and Cardiff, giving the soap-adjacent plots a concrete northern realism that undercuts the melodrama. Ratings hovered around six million, solid if unspectacular, and the show stayed within its self-contained runs rather than spawning further instalments. The format proved elastic enough to survive a complete cast overhaul between seasons, yet tight enough to deliver a full morality play each week, leaving characters to face the debris of truths they never meant to tell.
Production Details
BBC One / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2015
Created by: Daniel Brocklehurst
Showrunner(s): Nicola Shindler
Writer(s): Daniel Brocklehurst
Producer(s): Tom Sherry
Main Cast
Max Beesley as Mike
Jason Manford as Marty
Michelle Keegan as Tracy
Cherrelle Skeete as Viv
Sally Lindsay as Kathy
Mackenzie Crook as Pete
Kris Mochrie as Jez
Kevin Sutton as Kyle
Luke Bailey as Ash
Manjinder Virk as Marianne
Con O'Neill as Joe
Rayn Khan as Regular Car Salesman
