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The Beast Must Die ( BritBox)

Ironically, Cush Jumbo (right) was able to take the lead role of Frances in this slow-burning revenge thriller because a stage production of Shakespeare’s own slow-burning revenge thriller, Hamlet, in which she was to play the title role, was postponed due to the pandemic.

At the very start Frances tells us: ‘I am going to kill a man. I don’t know his name. I don’t know where he lives. I have no idea what he looks like. But I’m going to find him – and kill him.’

Her six-year-old son was killed in a hit-and-run accident three months ago. The police have given up trying to find the driver. Frances takes matters into her own hands and befriends the dysfunctional family of George, the man she thinks is responsible, and inveigles her way into their house.

George (Jared Harris) is ‘in property’, and we know he’s a rotter because he wears pink trousers and loafers with no socks and spends most of his time barking into his mobile phone or bullying his son.

So we, the viewers, are rooting for a would-be murderer.

The pleasure in this five-parter comes from watching Jumbo and Harris. Jumbo’s expression dissolves from a dazzling smile into naked loathing in an instant. Harris, so great in Chernobyl, appears to relish playing an absolute horror. And then there’s Billy Howle chewing the scenery as a traumatised cop on the verge of unravelling. This is Britbox’s first original drama, and if it can keep on attracting casts like this, it should thrive.