The ascendance of Suranne Jones from Coronation Street star to a creative force to be reckoned with over the last couple of decades has provided food for the soul as well as a feast of entertainment. Now the indefatigable Jones returns to the small screen (between the last series of Gentleman Jack and the second series of Vigil, arriving shortly) in the new ITV drama Maryland, directed by another former soap star, Susan Tully (Michelle Fowler, from the days when EastEnders was great in every way). Jones, who co-created Maryland with writer Anne Marie O’Connor, co-stars with Eve Best, who is one of the many faces here (Hugh Quarshie and Dean Lennox Kelly foremost among them) who make you cry: “Oh my God – yes! Why is this person not on my television more?!”
Maryland opens like a thriller, with a dead body discovered on a lonely stretch of beach on the Isle of Man and, soon after that, a woman taking delivery of a large package of smuggled drugs. This is a slightly unfortunate misdirection because it is not a thriller at all, but a chamber piece about family dynamics, female identity and ways of finding freedom before it is too late. The period of expectation-adjustment is a waste, but once get your eye in, it is a joy.
