The Cuckoo | Preview (Channel 5)

Stripped over four nights, this intense domestic drama stars Jill Halfpenny, Lee Ingleby and Claire Goose in the story of how a family's plans for a restorative relocation to the countryside collapse into extreme jeopardy…

Jessica (Goose), Nick (Ingleby), and their daughter, Alice (Freya Hannan-Mills), relocate to the countryside, hoping to leave financial struggles and family conflicts behind. The family take in a lodger, Sian (Halfpenny), who befriends Jessica and Alice but triggers suspicion in Nick.

As seeds of discord are sown and quickly bloom to reveal dark secrets, Alice and Sian grow closer, but Sian’s troubled past could be edging the family towards a disastrous future, and in a race against time, Jessica and Nick must fight to preserve everything they hold dear…

In episode one, at a farmhouse under renovation, Jessica is interviewing potential lodgers to relieve her family’s financial strain. Fourteen-year-old Alice, who has a difficult relationship with her mother, is against the idea. Jessica begins to lose hope until Sian, an artist, arrives. Their conversation is interrupted by their plumber's wife, demanding payment for work, leaving Jessica embarrassed. Sian offers to cover the bills with her deposit.

Nick and Alice return home and are introduced to their new lodger. Sian is charming but Alice is uncomfortable and Nick voices his concerns to Jessica about taking so much money from Sian.

Later, Jessica admits to Sian that she struggles to connect with Alice, and that Nick had an affair. Nick contacts one of Sian's references, discovering Fay Calder is her aunt, heightening his suspicions. Nick expresses his doubts about Sian but Jessica dismisses him.