Ordinary Lies, BBC One, 9pm
Created and scripted by Danny Brocklehurst, who cut his teeth on Shameless before writing last year's three-part crime thriller The Driver, this new series is set in the premises of JS Motor Group Ltd, a car showroom somewhere in the north-west of England.
Each episode examines the dramas and tragedies of one or other of the employees and it kicks off with the story of booze-addled salesman Marty McLean (comedian Jason Manford), who rolls home at 2am, shaves with an electric razor while he's driving to work and whose erratic time-keeping has put him in the bad books of boss Mike Hill (Max Beesley, at his rugged best).
When Mike sleeps in after another eight pint bender and then wakes to find a Post-It note on the fridge from wife Kat (Erin Shanagher) asking where his car is he calls a cab - and then, realising he's going to finally get the boot, calls work from the car park to say there's been a family bereavement and he won't be in that day.
Returning home, Marty tells Kat he's off ill, but at work it's action stations as his colleague Cathy arranges a hasty staff meeting. "What is it, Cathy," asks Grace (Rebecca Callard). "Are they firing people?"
They're not, as it happens. But they are arranging a card for Marty who they believe has just lost his wife. Yes, that's the excuse he came up with. It's a lie of the not-so-ordinary sort, to be honest, but as the title suggests, mendacity is the hook for the series.
Marty's apparent loss hits Mike's assistant Beth Corben (Jo Joyner) hard: she has her own problems to deal with, one of which is the silent phone calls she has started receiving at work. And while Marty is able to explain away the bunches of flowers that start to turn up at his house, things become a lot more difficult when he returns to the showroom and has to play the grieving widower.
Mackenzie Crook, Sally Lindsay, Michelle Keegan and Toast Of London's Shazad Latif are among the strong ensemble cast whose characters' stories will be picked over in the coming weeks.
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