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What’s this? An ITV drama that doesn’t involve crime solving, isn’t written by Lynda LaPlante and without a drop of whimsy in sight? You may feel that you have strayed onto the wrong channel, but no, this is Marchlands, the new supernatural drama that is set to intrigue and haunt audiences for the next five weeks.
The narrative is surprisingly complex, following three families who all live in the same house at different times. The earliest scenes are set in 1968, and feature Ruth (Jodie Whittaker) and Paul (Jamie Thomas King), a young couple struggling to overcome the death of their young daughter, Alice, with Ruth convinced that the circumstances of the death were suspicious. The next family are from 1987: Alex Kingston and Dean Andrews play a couple whose young daughter has an imaginary friend called Alice. The remaining scenes are set in 2010, with Mark (Elliot Cowan) and his pregnant wife Nisha (Shelley Conn) having just moved into the house.
It took a little while for the plot to get going due to having to do the compulsory opening episode setup three times, but when the ball did get rolling, there was no stopping it, with the episode being both compelling and chilling. Despite the supernatural aspects of the show not being entirely original (Don’t Look Now, I’m looking at you), there is something eternally creepy about such events as doors locking from the inside when there was no one in the room to lock them.
However, it would be unfair to say that by finding an old house and shutting some doors, a successful series will be created. In lesser hands, Marchlands could have failed spectacularly, but the integration of the three parts of the narrative was a master-class in juxtaposition, and having these parallel strands ensured that it was far more interesting than a generic haunted house story. Similarly, without the strong characterisation, it would have been difficult for the episode to have been as compelling as it was. Indeed, a remarkable amount of ground was covered: not only were the characters fully fleshed out by the end of part 2, there were also plenty of questions created, leaving an instant longing for the answers.
The cast was also very strong, with the scenes between Whittaker and King being both sharply written and sharply performed. It’s also nice to see Dean Andrews after Ashes to Ashes, though he must have started his own Sam Tyler/Alex Drake monologue by now: “My name is Dean Andrews and no one will cast me in anything set post-1989...” His very natural performance did unfortunately make the flaws in Kingston’s performance more evident; her Northern accent was so severe that she might as well have been crying out: “Listen, I am a Northerner!”
However, the fact that the main criticism is that one of the actor’s accents isn’t very good shows that Marchlands is very good, and it looks certain to keep us guessing right until the end. All it needs to do now is to provide answers that will match the standard that has been achieved by the build up.
Marchlands continues on Thursday at 9pm on ITV1.
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