Search TV Shows

The Inheritance
Home / Drama / The Inheritance
Drama · 2023

The Inheritance

Four-part Channel 5 thriller about siblings hunting for their father's missing will after he leaves everything to a stranger.

Starring Robert James-Collier· Gaynor Faye· Jemima Rooper
Overview

Dennis Welch dies on a County Kilkenny riverbank and leaves his three grown children nothing. The new will hands the house, the boatyard and £3 million to Susan, a local florist the family has never heard of. Daniel, Sian and Chloe ditch their grim funeral buffet to rifle through filing cabinets, chase land-registry papers and grill the parish priest, convinced Dad was coerced or senile. Their hunt darkens when the river discovery becomes a murder inquiry and detectives start asking which child last saw him alive.

Larry Lamb’s Dennis appears only in flashbacks, yet his breezy cruelty sets the tone for a story that keeps shifting sympathies. Robert James-Collier plays Daniel, the failed restaurateur who owes violent men money; Gaynor Faye is Sian, the polished GP hiding prescription fraud; Jemima Rooper’s Chloe, the baby of the family, claims she wants only the truth while carrying the biggest secret. Director Aku Louhimies shoots the Irish countryside like a postcard that’s been folded too many times, all soft greens and sudden shadows, letting writer Aschlin Ditta squeeze ever more twists from 43-minute episodes.

Channel 5 launched the series quietly on 4 September 2023, yet episode one pulled 3.39 million viewers within a week, the channel’s best drama launch in four years. Critics praised its old-fashioned propulsion: no lectures, just cliff-hangers, forged signatures and a final revelation that lands like a car crash.

Production Details

5 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2023 - Present

Created by: Aschlin Ditta

Showrunner(s): Lesley Douglas, Aschlin Ditta, Angela Squire

Writer(s): Aschlin Ditta

Main Cast

Robert James-Collier as Daniel

Gaynor Faye as Sian

Jemima Rooper as Chloe

Adil Ray as Pete

Larry Lamb as Dennis

Rocco Cheetham-Karcz as Charlie

Kevin Harvey as Glen

Samantha Bond as Susan

Rory Fleck-Byrne as Nathan

Pauline McLynn as Jenny Roche

Kevin Whately as Michael

Margaret Kelly as Claire

Share on
Kip Ford
Kip Ford
TV Critic & Editorial Director
Kip Ford is Editorial Director at TV Reference. His encyclopedic knowledge spans every era of television history, with particular expertise in British and American drama, crime, and the golden age of network TV.