The House Across the Street

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Line of Duty's Craig Parkinson and Harry Potter star Shirley Henderson lead the cast of an all new Channel 5 drama series. The House Across the Street focuses on a missing child and a mother longing to be reconnected.

Fragile, softly spoken and hauntedly distracted, Henderson’s portrayal of Claudia was masterful. Glints of something harder – desperation? Madness? – were revealed beneath her brittle façade. Claudia was close enough to breaking point that her fixation on Emily’s disappearance made sense. As a proactive neighbour, she suddenly had a new sense of purpose and a role to play. Irish actor Ian-Lloyd Anderson, who plays Owen, said: “This job was lovely because we filmed near Dublin, which meant I could go home every night. Claudia finds herself obsessed with the investigation, even organizing a vigil, raising money for the girl’s parents, Owen and Sabine, and helping Owen get home when she finds him drunk and in despair. The House Across the Street begins on Channel 5 at 9pm on Monday, October 17. The episodes are an hour long and there will be four in the series. Craig says: "I found it immediately intriguing. When I read the scripts, I initially thought it was going to be one thing, and then it morphed into something else completely. Also Shirley is one of my favourite actors, so as soon as her name was mentioned I couldn’t turn the job down!"

There will be four hour-long episodes of The House Across the Street, with the first airing on Monday, October 17 at 9pm on Channel 5 and My5. The second episode will then air the following day (Tuesday, October 18) at 9pm, with the final two instalments showing next week. The good thing about Channel 5 is that they let me have all four episodes of their dramas in advance, so I can watch the whole thing and manage your expectations. Thus I can tell you that The House Across the Street doesn’t build to a brilliant finale. It crams far too much into its final episode and goes a little bit too mad (put it this way: there is a scene in which a woman puts on a pair of her male neighbour’s underpants).

Craig says: "As a parent, I find it very difficult to hear about reports of real-life cases, I always turn the television or radio off. But this isn’t just a series about a missing child, it’s also a thriller about unhealthy obsession!" Who's Who — a brief guide to the main characters in The House Across The Street Overly friendly neighbour Joanne is initially at the heart of the community search for Emily. But the harsh way she treats her disabled son, Simon, and her strange collection of life-like dolls leads Claudia to suspect her involvement in Emily’s disappearance.Vardy v Rooney: Channel 4 unveils Wagatha Christie drama cast - including Game of Thrones and Sherwood stars The House Across the Street combined sharply observed characters with a genuinely compelling concept. While some of the dialogue veered a little too close to exposition to be convincing – “the breast reconstruction has been a success after your double mastectomy”, said a doctor, as though Claudia might have forgotten her recent surgery –, the drama’s well-paced intrigue made its script’s occasional clangers feel forgivable.

Claudia gets suspicious of her neighbours when the search becomes a murder investigation. But is she looking in the right places or is the truth staring her in the face? Is there a trailer for The House Across The Street?The House Across the Street cast is led by Scottish star Shirley Henderson, who’s known for everything from Trainspotting to Bridget Jones’s Diary and, of course, as the iconic and ever-melancholic Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films. She plays Claudia, who has survived a battle with cancer and feels distant from her son, whom she co-parents with ex-husband Leon. The House Across the Street is full of characters nursing ulterior motives, most of which are yet to be revealed. Joanne’s emotional investment in the disappearance rivalled Claudia’s, and the revelation of her creepy doll collection in a garden shed (“this is my happy place”) only made her more unsettling.

Shirley Henderson leads the cast of The House Across the Street, a brand new Channel 5 drama. The Harry Potter star plays Claudia, a lonely single mother and school nurse longing for connection. The House Across the Street is not based on a true story and is not originally a book. Here is everything we know about the drama. Shirley says: "Sometimes I’d sit on the pavement between scenes just to get my thoughts together and run the lines in my head. Wondering how to bring to life a character that has lots of emotional scenes is always challenging, but getting to have magic moments with such a brilliant cast and crew made it all worthwhile!" Emily’s mum Sabine has secretly been struggling in her marriage to Owen, which isn’t as rosy as it seems from the outside. But when the police investigation takes a dramatic turn, Sabine and Claudia strike up an unlikely friendship. Shirley says: "I loved the danger of it, the delicate quality, the sense of the unknown. I was very surprised to be offered the role, though! I don’t think I’ve ever had this big a part in a TV show, where I’m in almost every scene – I was really nervous about it!"The first episode saw Claudia, a lonely single mum who is recovering from breast cancer, become involved in the hunt for missing schoolgirl Emily Winter. But soon strange things start happening when overly friendly neighbor Joanne shows Claudia a collection of weird-looking dolls in her shed, Emily's dad gets drunk alone in the woods and even Claudia's own son seems to be spooked by some images he has been shown by his new tutor, George. At this point, it seems everyone and anyone could be guilty of Emily's disappearance... but when the case turns into a murder inquiry, just what happened to Emily and who took her from the local park in broad daylight? And why is Claudia so invested in the case? Is she just trying to fill her lonely life, or is there more to her involvment than meets the eye? What happens in episode two of The House Across The Street? Frantic parents Owen and Sabine are played by Ian-Lloyd Anderson and Lisa Dwyer Hogg (Image credit: Channel 5) Interviews: Shirley Henderson and Craig Parkinson on their starring roles The final episodes will air next week on Monday, October 24 and Tuesday, October 25 at the same time. When she hears about a local girl, Emily Winter, who has gone missing she seizes her opportunity to become a hero and make some friends. Soon Claudia becomes embroiled in the case and grows fixated on uncovering the truth. But not only is she determined to find out what happened to Emily, she's also becoming obsessed with the Winter family at the center of the case — Emily’s devastated father Owen, her cold mother Sabine, and her 12-year-old brother, Dean.