Media Review – The Secret
This month we review the four-part TV drama The Secret, which is based on a true story, and showing on ITV on Friday nights. James Nesbitt plays Colin Howell, a married father of three children and pillar of the local Baptist community in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Howell begins an affair with fellow church-goer Hazel Buchanan, played by Genevieve O’Reilly, and together they murder their respective spouses, and staging the deaths to look like a suicide pact.
For nearly 20 years Howell and Buchanan quite literally got away with murder, until Howell confessed to church elders in 2010 and was eventually convicted, as was Buchanan. The programme has been getting very good ratings, particularly in Northern Ireland where it’s estimated around 60% of viewers watched the opening episode. But the series has also attracted criticism from those who argue that it’s harming the other remaining members of the four families involved. So … is The Secret any good? And should The Secret have ever been made?
Find out what our team made of it at 5 minutes 50 into the podcast.