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Movies & TV

04th Feb 2020

Crime drama The Secret tells the real-life story of a Northern Ireland double murder

Paul Moore

The Secret

It airs tonight on TG4 and looks excellent.

With new releases like The Stranger, The Outsider and Amazon’s new documentary series on Ted Bundy keeping audiences busy, it’s easy to overlook some other releases that are also arriving this February.

The Secret on TG4 is bound to fascinate Irish audiences because it tells the story of a real-life double murder that occurred in Coleraine.

James Nesbitt plays Colin Howell, a respectable dentist and pillar of the community who became a killer in partnership with a Sunday school teacher, Hazel Buchanan (played by Genevieve O’Reilly).

In terms of the official synopsis, here’s what viewers can expect from the very first episode:

“Coleraine, Northern Ireland, 1990. Colin Howell (Nesbitt) is a leading member of the Baptist community, and an apparently loving husband and father. But when he meets fellow Baptist, Hazel Buchanan (O’Reilly), he pursues her and they embark on an affair which will have cataclysmic consequences for them and their families.

“When the affair comes to the attention of their church and to the community, both Lesley Howell (Colin’s wife) and Trevor Buchanan (Hazel’s husband) are devastated. They’re ostracised by friends and publicly humiliated at church. It seems that they are being censored by church and community as much as their cheating partners.

“They also have to undergo marital counselling with the Pastor, which initially appears to be successful. But Colin and Hazel simply can’t resist one another, and despite their promises to be faithful to their spouses they rekindle the affair – but now it is more secret than ever.”

Written by BAFTA-winning writer Stuart Urban (An Ungentlemanly Act), the drama is directed by Nick Murphy (Occupation, Prey) and produced by Jonathan Curling (Holy Cross, The Government Inspector).

At the time of its initial release, the drama earned solid reviews with The Telegraph saying “nothing makes the skin crawl quite so thoroughly as seeing evil operate under cover of religious righteousness” and the four-part show was BAFTA nominated in the category of Best Drama Miniseries.

The Secret starts at 10.30pm on TG4 tonight – Tuesday 4 February.

Clip via TG4

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Topics:

TG4,TV