Last night’s view

Flesh and Blood****

ITV IN soaps there is a classic scene when a character, driven to the brink by the twists of cruel fate, looks to the rainy heavens and screams. I imagine the team of BBC Scotland’s The Nine do the same when the new edition of Radio Times arrives.

One reason for the news programme’s pitifully low, several men and a dog audience numbers, is the sheer strength of the peak time offerings on the main channels.

Last night, for example, viewers could have chosen from a new series of MasterChef at 9pm, the police procedural documentary Murder 24/7, or Flesh and Blood, ITV’s latest star-spangled whodunnit set over four nights.

Written by Sarah Williams (Small Island), Flesh and Blood began with a figure on a stretcher and a tease. The unidentified individual was taken from a storm-lashed beach at night and loaded into an ambulance as a woman, in voiceover, set the scene.

“I’ve known the family for years. I watched the children grow up, and I can honestly say they’ve been the perfect neighbours … They’ve had their ups and downs. Who hasn’t? But I never, ever dreamt it would end like this.”

Who could resist such an opening, particularly when the narrator - reliable or unreliable? - is Imelda Staunton, playing Mary, the next door neighbour to the perfect family we suspect, and hope, are not so ideal after all.

With its beside the Sussex seaside setting and intriguing opening, the ITV thriller has drawn comparisons with Big Little Lies, the Reece Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman-led Golden Globes winner. But Flesh and Blood is more grubby old Blighty in its concerns - nosy neighbour, arguments over money - than California glossy, and it does not take itself too seriously.

The plot is that old standby, recently widowed mum takes up with a new man, much to the suspicion of her adult children who worry about her - and their inheritance. It has been more than 18 months since Vivien (Francesca Annis) lost her husband, and now she is introducing her boyfriend Mark (Stephen Rea) to children Jake, Helen and Natalie (the always excellent Russell Tovey, Claudie Blakley, Lydia Leonard).

Mark, being a retired surgeon, seems like quite the catch initially. Which woman wouldn’t want a man who, at a pinch, could perform an appendectomy on the kitchen table? (You would be surprised how often that scenario comes up in fiction.) He is loving, romantic, attentive, whisking Vivien off to France for a surprise lunch in a private plane. But is he too good to be true?

Vivien’s children are not quite what they seem either, each having their share of secrets and enemies. Then there is singleton Mary next door, an eager little mouse who is always ready to take in a parcel or whip up a batch of cheese straws for Vivien if she is having the family around. Clearly suspicious.

The cut where the camera moves from Mary telling the police that she likes to keep herself to herself, to her steaming open a parcel for next door, was wickedly good. Even better was the follow-up.

Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Mary has a set of binoculars and they are not used for bird-watching. Between this, the sweeping orchestral score and the sunny setting in which dark events may or may not be taking place, there is an air of faux Hitchcock with slyly comic undertones about Flesh and Blood. After such a strong opener it has set a high bar for the next few nights. One to commit to early on before the spoilers start spilling forth.

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