The Secret of Crickley Hall. Picture from the B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Suranne Jones, Tom Ellis, Douglas Henshall, David Warner, Sarah Smart, Iain DeCaestecker, Olivia Cooke, Maise Williams, Bill Milner, Kian Parsiani, Pixie Davies, Donald Sumpter.

The second part of Joe Ahearne’s adaptation of James Herbert’s The Secret of Crickley Hall sees the tension stoked up as the malevolent force of Douglas Henshall’s Augustus Cribben starts to take more of a hold on the lives of the young family that resides in the former orphanage.

Suranne Jones, who already looks as though she has been put through an emotional treadmill as she plays the mother who has lost her son to outside forces, is looking more and more at ease in these type of big budget television productions and carries almost the full emotional weight of the episode on her shoulders. Alongside Douglas Henshall, in perhaps his most frustratingly brilliant role, Sarah Smart and the likeable David Warner as the equally affable Percy Judd, this is a cast where the emotion is built into each character as if channelling some forgotten memory of a classic suspense thriller.

So it must be said that of the outstanding Olivia Cooke as the love interest of the young Percy Judd, the school mistress Nancy Linnet, who sees the corruption in Augustus Cribben. Ms Cooke’s performance may have some complaining of stereo-typing and 1940’s style written heroines but get past the girlish exterior of the time and this is an actress of quality, one who should go to follow Ms. Jones’ lead and go on to even bigger things in the future.

The story line is highly uncomfortable in places, as all good horror and sinister tales are meant to be, however it the undercurrent of sexual misrepresentation and delight in the corrupted nature of innocence that is most chilling. In this Sarah Smart plays the part supremely well of Cribben’s sister who is having an inappropriate relationship with one of her charges, the anxiety or disquiet that the audience may feel is heightened by the liberal and prolonged use of the canings the children receive.

In the vast majority of James Herbert’s books the question of human sexuality is often raised but in Sarah Smart, there can be no better female actor working in Britain on television at the moment who can be so good at appearing unnerving in this type of role nor one who gives of such a potent foreboding of doom.

The final part of this adaptation is on B.B.C. next Sunday and already the programme has proved that there is always room for the supernatural and home grown horror on British television without having to stoop to some of the more sensationalist American offerings.

Ian D. Hall