The Feud

Formulaic Channel 5 dramas seem to call upon a regular roster of fading actors to deliver scripts written by students on creative writing correspondence courses.

The plot of this particular pantomime is so predictable and so cliched that one almost overlooks the amateur dramatics of the performers.

It's rather sad to see actors of such established pedigree reduced to delivering the dross presented to them.

The premise that a professional barrister would overlook the basic requirements of a planning application to create a tiny kitchen extension is simply ludicrous.

I hop the cast are rewarded handsomely to risk their careers in this rubbish.

Emma and John are about to up sticks and leave their neighbourhood, but she gets cold feet and wants to stay, and subsequently have a kitchen extension. The proposed building work upsets the neighbours and a feud begins.

It's like watching a farce on stage, the storyline is bonkers, but it's definitely a watchable series. At six episodes long it's too much, it would have been so much better if it had been done over four, pacing was an issue.

It was definitely all over the place at times, the story was so hard to believe and every single one of the neighbours seemed to have a suspicious look on their face and a dark secret.

The acting was rather good, Jill Halfpenny in particular was excellent, even if Emma was absolutely loathsome, spoilt and obnoxious, that's part of the problem, it was hard to have any sympathy for her. Larry Lamb and Rupert Penry Jones were rather good.

If only she'd just settled for new worktops instead, think of the fuss it would have saved.

It's bonkers, but worth seeing.

6/10.

I enjoyed most of the series except the final episode got a bit convoluted. Emma, the lead character, really brought on the whole sequence of events. She was devoid of any emotional attachment to her family. I would call the way things turned out " Poetic Justice." Emma just steam rolled through everyone and her husband just let her do it, he needed to stand up to her. He didn't and things spiralled out of control. I know most people have security cameras now however I would hate to live on this street with all the voyeurism and scrutiny. Makes for reasonably compelling viewing.

There were plenty of advanced trailers for this 6 X 1 hour series and the 'stellar' cast led me to believe that this was a Channel 5 thriller worth watching.

How wrong can you be? The opening episode gave the overall plot line away although no estate agent worth their salt would carry out viewings in a house smeared with blood stains.

Avoiding spoilers, the timescale was confusing especially in the last ten minutes of the final episode with the appearance, of a character of some significance, for the first time in the series.

Someone has already commented that it should have been made as a Black Comedy as a dark thriller it was clearly not.

What a complete waste of six hours of my time. A whole bunch of unlikable characters living in three houses in a supposedly quiet street and all it took was a proposed extension to a kitchen to set off a series of ludicrous events. Throw in a suspended police officer and things get worse.

The only likeable character was the daughter of the couple deciding to build the extension, Beth who was totally innocent of everything going on around her until the suspended police officer took it upon herself to use her to get revenge for the suspension. Though I was half expecting whomever the writer was to have her guilty of something.

Then there was the music. A bit too cheery dir a supposedly suspenseful thriller,