Emma Averill (Vicky McClure) has everything. She’s married with two children, and is a compassionate, competent family lawyer. Her firm’s conference room looks out over St Paul’s Cathedral in London, but after another fulfilling and lucrative day, her BMW swooshes her home fast enough to crunch on to the gravel drive of her big country house in time for a bedtime story with her son. When she and her ruggedly bearded hubby Rob (Tom Cullen) invite their urbane friends over for a relaxed weekend lunch, the chilli she whips up in their massive kitchen is divine; it’s served on a palatial wooden dining table made by Rob’s own strong hands.
But Emma is the protagonist in a British psychological thriller, of the kind that used to blaze across two breathless episodes on ITV midweek, but now hangs around for six rather more pretentious ones on Paramount+. So Insomnia, adapted from her own novel by Sarah Pinborough, says to Emma: nice upper-middle-class life you’ve got there. Be a shame if something absolutely bananas happened to it.
