Photograph: Luke Varley/BBC/Dancing Ledge Productions
On holiday a few years ago, thriller writer Louise Doughty was idling on a sun lounger, her family spread out through the resort, and her mind wandered to a dark place. “What would I do if we were suddenly in a situation of peril?” says Doughty. “Would I go to that family member? Or that one? Or would I help the people around me? Would I behave heroically? Would I just hide under the lounger?”
That idea has been turned into a three-part drama, Crossfire – Doughty’s first original script for TV – starring Keeley Hawes as Jo, a fortysomething woman on holiday with her three children and charmless husband, and two other couples and their kids (among the great cast are Josette Simon and Anneika Rose). There are tensions all over the place, from Jo’s crumbling marriage to the class divides between staff and guests to the way you know something horrible is coming, in a situation – a luxurious resort in the Canary Islands – where people have let their guard down.
