James Norton's Playing Nice sounds almost unbearably gripping
Whenever we hear that a new James Norton TV show is on its way, it goes straight to the top of our must-watch list. January is the perfect time of the year to get stuck into a gripping drama, so we were excited to hear that ITV is releasing Playing Nice, a psychological thriller starring the Bafta-nominated Happy Valley star, very soon.
Playing Nice follows two couples who are faced with a horrifying dilemma after discovering their toddlers were switched at birth in a hospital mix-up. It is set in Cornwall and based on a bestselling novel by British author JP Delaney, with One Day's Kate Hewitt directing all episodes. So, we're as sure as can be that it's going to be a good'un, and the next buzzy series worth getting stuck into immediately.
Here's everything we know so far about Playing Nice, including updates on the release date, plot and cast...
Playing Nice: Release date
ITV has confirmed that the first episode of the four-part series will air on ITV1 at 9pm on Sunday 5 January, with subsequent episodes landing at the same time on both Mondays and Sundays. If you can't wait (relatable), you can also watch the entire series in one day on streaming service ITVX. See you there...
Playing Nice: Cast
With a phenomenal cast, Playing Nice is set to be one of ITV's stand-out shows of the year. It stars James Norton as Pete Riley, with BAFTA-nominee Niamh Algar playing his wife Maddie. The Irish actress is best known for her incredible perfomance as Dinah in The Virtues but you might have also seen her in Mary & George and Raised by Wolves.
The other couple, Miles Lamber and Lucy Lambers, are portrayed by James McArdle, known for playing Hugh in Life After Life and Deacon Mark Burton in Mare of Easttown, and Jessica Brown Findlay, known for playing Lady Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey.
Most of us know James as the terrifying Tommy Lee Royce in BBC's Happy Valley, but he can also currently be seen in Joy, a film about the development of IVF that's recently been trending on Netflix. One of our favourite actors, we can't wait to see how he tackles this exciting new role.
Playing Nice: Plot
Billed as a twisty psychological thriller and based on JP Delaney's book of the same name, Playing Nice follows two couples who discover that their toddlers have been switched at birth. They are faced with a horrendous choice: to keep the son they have raised and loved as their own, or reclaim their biological child?
Playing Nice by JP Delaney
ITV's synopsis reads: "Living a waking nightmare, Pete and Maddie are jettisoned into the world of the other couple Miles and Lucy. At first it seems all four are agreed on a solution, but it soon becomes clear that hidden motives are at play – how far can each couple trust the real parents of their child or even each other? As Pete and Maddie are stretched to breaking point, they realise that they will stop at nothing to keep their family together."
When we spoke to James Norton about Playing Nice last year, he said: "The thing about this story, particularly, is the hook. If you explain it to people, they go, 'What! I can’t imagine what that would be like!''" So do you have to be a parent yourself to 'get it'? "I don’t think necessarily being a parent is a prerequisite for empathy," he told us. "I mean, if I was to find out that my parents weren’t my own parents, at whatever age, it would be horrific and traumatic and confusing. So to find out that your child is not your own, I think, is a fairly universal and recognisable trauma, which people can imagine."
Norton's role as "good guy" Pete is the link to the show's title. "What excited me about him was that I hadn’t played a sort of everyman," he said. "[Pete] looks out for his partner, he’s a fantastic father and he is constantly trying to do the right thing." But, Pete's determination to 'play nice' and avoid conflict causes tension in his relationship. "It asks questions around modern masculinity," he continued. "Like, to be a man in this current time, in this world, the mistake is that you need to be passive and make space for your partner, make space for other people and step away from the oppressive patriarchy. And so, as a result, [Pete] kind of says, 'Well, I think let’s just play nice. Let’s just try to be as amenable as possible in all situations.' And so he kind of goes too far in the other direction."
We can also expect Playing Nice to start conversations around post-natal depression, as Pete's wife Maddie is shown suffering from the mental illness and enduring the injustice of it being weaponised against her in a family court. Grace Ofari-Attah, the writer who adapted the story for TV, used to work as an NHS doctor and psychiatry consultant, hence her eagerness to depict the condition on screen to help raise awareness and banish shame.
Playing Nice: Trailer
The first Playing Nice trailer dropped on 2 December, with the tagline, 'What if your child, was their child?', and it's already given us a strong sense of foreboding. Not least because towards the end we hear the ominous words, 'They've been lying to us from the beginning'. But who, and why? Roll on Sunday...
Watch Playing Nice on ITV1 at 9pm on Sunday 5 January
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