Nicola Walker

Behind the scenes of Marriage

How playing a couple of 27 years in ­Stefan Golaszewski's new BBC drama taught Sean Bean and Nicola Walker the secret of a lasting relationship.

Last Tango in Halifax review

What the Dickens! The Artful Dodger's turned up in Halifax.

Last Tango In Halifax series 5 episode 1 review

Sally Wainwright's excellent Yorkshire comedy-drama returns to BBC One.

Last Tango in Halifax review

While there are trying times for late-in-life lovebirds Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi, Sally Wainwright's family drama remains as warm and familiar as a reunion with old friends.

Last Tango in Halifax

Understated laughs and intense anguish make this drama's long-awaited return a triumph.

Last Tango In Halifax, BBC1, review

A quietly pioneering script makes this one of the best shows on TV.

Last Tango in Halifax, review

Anne Reid is on sparkling form as Last Tango returns with authenticity and bite.

One Red Nose Day and a Wedding review

Twenty-five years after the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis's well-intentioned short sequel for Comic Relief gave rise to no laughs but some genuine pathos.

Maybe some of you are sick of hearing it by now, but I personally think that this series of Inside No. 9 is possibly the best so far certainly in terms of variety. After last week's clever Memento-style darkly comic murder mystery, we have a much more subdued tale that has the usual twist-in-the-tale that we've come to expect from the show. To Have and To Hold feels like Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's tribute to Mike Leigh as it focuses on the strains in the marriage between wedding photographer Adrian (Pemberton) and Harriet (Nicola Walker) over a handful of scenes. Adrian is painted as the most boring man in the world; a jigsaw enthusiast and pot noodle eater he spends more time in his darkroom than he does working on his marriage. Even though Harriet wants to renew their vows, Adrian is still simmering over a dalliance his wife had with a former colleague in a Premier Inn in Wolverhampton. In the episode's most excruciating scene Harriet attempts to inject some spice into their relationship however their role play doesn't go to plan and is soon interrupted by a recently-wed pair (Shearsmith and Miranda Hennessy) who have come to look at their wedding pictures. What I liked most about To Have and To Hold was the attention-to-detail in the scenes between Harriet and Adrian that added to the realism of the piece. Nicola Walker's casting was a piece of genius and her performance here was utterly heartbreaking as the woman stuck in marriage that had lasted due to habit rather than romance. She and Pemberton were utterly believable in their roles as they convinced as a couple who still loved each other but struggled to show it. I was utterly shocked when the twist involving Adrian was first revealed and as ever the writing duo gradually peeled back the dark side of the character before the dark denouement. Like the best episodes of Inside No. 9, To Have and To Hold is an instalment that you can revisit and try to spot all the clues that Pemberton and Shearsmith dropped about the true nature of Adrian's personality. Unlike many of the shows that have debuted this year, every episode of Inside No. 9 has provided memorable moments and that's especially true of To Have and To Hold which may be the best thirty minutes of TV that I've seen so far in 2018.