Sheridan Smith leads the cast of No Return
(Picture: ITV)In a departure from much of ITV’s recent programming, which has been dominated over the past few months by psychological thrillers about women furtively downing goblets of red wine in their massive kitchens as they ponder traumatic secrets from their pasts, No Return is a solid slice of emotionally driven TV drama, which unfolds at pace. At the centre of it is Sheridan Smith, a performer who it’s difficult not to root for, even when she’s playing a woman whose first recourse upon arriving in Turkey for an all-inclusive family holiday is to demand to speak to the manager.
Smith’s Kathy, along with husband Martin (Michael Jibson), their teenage children Noah (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) and Jess (Lily Sutcliffe), as well as younger sister Megan (Sian Brooke) and brother-in-law Steve (David Mumeni), begin their Turkish trip in high spirits (bar the aforementioned phone call to the hotel manager about some perceived oversight in the cleaning), with beach sports and a drunken parental karaoke session on the agenda. There’s something a little bizarre about watching Smith and Jibson, who’ve each won an Olivier for musical theatre performances in Legally Blonde and Hamilton respectively, mug their way tunelessly through All About That Bass, but they seem to be having plenty of fun doing so. Their on-screen kids are understandably less impressed, their faces pictures of adolescent mortification.
