VERY INTERESTING: FINDING ALICE

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Finding Alice review: Keeley Hawes gives a masterful performance in ITV’s darkly comic drama

This interesting and ambitious drama revolves around Keeley Hawes's recently-bereaved character Alice Dillon.

Keeley Hawes must be one of the most hardworking actresses around. The last few years have seen her in The Durrells, Bodyguard, Traitors, Summer of Rockets, Line of Duty, Year of the Rabbit, Honour, Rebecca, Mrs Wilson, and more; already in 2021 she’s got a film coming out on Sky (To Olivia) and a Channel 4 show (It’s A Sin). When does she sleep?

And that’s not even to mention the drama we’re talking about today: ITV’s Finding Alice – which sees her working very hard indeed. She’s in every scene of the intense six-hour drama – oh, and she’s an Executive Producer too.

Hawes has reunited with the team behind The Durrells (Simon Nye, Roger Goldby) to create a blackly comic drama about Alice, a woman who suddenly loses her beloved partner Harry when he falls down the stairs of their fancy new home – leaving her behind to a) cope with intense grief and b) uncover all his (many) secrets.

In some ways, Finding Alice is a hard watch. It’s a drama about death and grief and lies! That’s heavy stuff! But thankfully Alice herself is a wonderful creation, refusing to fit neatly into the “grieving widow” box and disconcerting everyone around her with dark jokes and erratic behaviour and her utter determination to do things just the way she wants.

That determination comes into play when she discovers that the family’s bank account is empty, beginning the first step to the unravelling of Harry’s secrets. As a seemingly-successful builder and property developer, Harry was the one who designed and built the ultra-modern technology-filled “smart house” we see on screen, presenting it proudly to Alice and their daughter Charlotte. 

But in the opening minutes of the first episode, on the very day they move in to the house, he is found dead at the bottom of the bannister-free floating staircase. Not a very smart house after all. (Learn more about where they filmed the Finding Alice smart house).

Harry was the family’s main breadwinner, but now it emerges that he was gliding along on the surface while paddling furiously underwater. The question of whether Alice can even keep the new house is totally up in the air. So – what will she do now? And how will she grieve when new secrets and problems keep coming out of the woodwork?

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking