The great, underused Con O’Neill retunrs to primetime after his role in Happy Valley last year. In the second series of this ensemble anthology show, he stars as Joe, a popular manager at a sportswear wholesaler. After an accident at work, he returns home to find everything not quite as he expects it, setting in motion a series of events which uncovers a wealth of family secrets and abuse. O’Neill excels as a workplace-banter legend who’s pushed to the edge.

Guardian

It was really not about spying, or lying, but about how tragedy drives people apart when they most need to be together. Clever, moral stuff and a million miles from ordinary.

Daily Express

The concept is somewhere between single drama and series: to stay in one place while shifting focus from one character to another. Paul Abbott did it in Clocking Off, telling a different story each week about a group of workers in a Manchester textile plant. Jimmy McGovern exported the idea to The Street, where he opened one door at a time to find out what was going on inside. The common denominator of both series was scriptwriter-for-hire Danny Brocklehurst. Brocklehurst took the format and made it his own in Ordinary Lies… It was all held together by O’Neill, adept at switching from relentless bonhomie to febrile suspicion. Utterly gripping.

Arts Desk