My wife and I just binge-watched, over a couple of days, a Welsh-noir short series, Hidden, shown last month on the BBC and now available here on Acorn TV.
In a word: Outstanding! This is a story of young women kidnapped and kept in captivity - something we've seen a lot of before not only screen but, tragically, in the news. But Hidden somehow manages to do this differently, with fresh voices, and more than a handful of original, memorable characters, including the minor as well as the major.
The police are DI Cadi John (Sian Reese-Williams) and DS Owen Vaughn (Sion Alun Davies), in a small town in Wales. Cadi is the middle child in a family of three sisters, whose father is a retired detective in failing health, connected to the case at hand in the past. Owen's girlfriend is expecting a child - theirs - but he's not quite yet come to terms with that, and finds himself attracted to a very attractive DC, Alice (Sarah Tempest), in the station. Even the DSI in charge of the precinct, a very minor role, is done with care and originality: she neither gets in the way of the investigation nor is especially gung-ho, which strikes me as being very realistic.
The villains are complex and original, too. The mother of the kidnapper, Iona Harris (Gillian Elisa), is a tough cookie. She's on her son's back for, well, kidnapping and keeping these women for years, but she doesn't stop him or turn him over to the police. Her position as a reluctant accomplice explains lots of things in the end.
And her son, Dylan Harris (Rhodri Meilir), is a first-class monster. Soft-spoken, really wanting to take care of the women he kidnaps, yet utterly oblivious to the anguish he's causing the victims and their families, including an uncle who is serving time in prison for a murder Dylan committed.
We've been to England and Scotland. After seeing Hidden - really well acted by everyone, including Gwyneth Keyworth as Megan, the current victim - Wales is on the agenda.
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