Like ‘Escape to the Country’ meets ‘Pacific Heights’, new telly thriller ‘The Cuckoo’ has been gathering plenty of positive word of mouth since it debuted on Channel 5. The story of a cash-strapped family whose move to the country curdles into a nightmare when they take in a proper wrong’un as a lodger, it unfolds over four nights and four hour-long episodes. It’s a semi-realtime domestic drama that promise gripping drama, intrigue and a whole lot of bunnies scurrying for safety. Here’s what you need to know.
What is The Cuckoo about?
As you can guess from the title and the on-the-nose tagline (‘Don’t let her in’), Channel 5’s tense new domestic thriller charts what happens when a malign force is let into a family’s domestic space. It’s a theme that’s fuelled Hollywood thrillers since year dot, from ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ to Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, but over four episodes viewed from the family sofa, it promises some seriously uncomfortable, slow burn telly – and deeply moreish with it. You may have taken in your last suspicious lodger.
The lodger in this case is artist Sian, who moves into the Hayes’s – Nick, Jessica and Alice – mid-renovation farmhouse and quickly starts turning things upside down. A bond soon forms between her and the disgruntled Alice, a potential source of poison to drip into an already combustible situation. Alice’s tough situation at her new school isn’t helping, either.
Where is The Cuckoo filmed?
The show, created by British actor-writer-producer Barunka O'Shaughnessy, was filmed in late 2023 in County Wicklow, Ireland.
Who’s in the cast?
The married couple at the centre of the series’ domestic ructures, Nick and Jessica Hayes, are played by ‘Master and Commander’s Lee Ingleby and ‘Waking the Dead’s Claire Goose, while newcomer Freya Hannan-Mills is their 16-year-old daughter Alice.
Jill Halfpenny – aka ‘Eastenders’ Kate Mitchell – plays their artist lodger Sian, the cuckoo in the nest. TV veteran Marjorie Yates (‘Shameless’, ‘The Sweeney’) plays Sian’s aunt Fay.
How to watch The Cuckoo?
‘The Cuckoo’ is airing on Channel 5 from Monday to Thursday this week. Episodes are also available to stream on My 5.