Ordinary Lies (BBC1, 9pm)

GATESHEAD'S Jill Halfpenny is among the latest well-known actors to join hit BBC1 drama penned by award-winning writer Danny Brocklehurst.

The last series was based in a car showroom, but now the action has moved to the call centre and warehouse of sports sales company Coopers, and viewers are introduced to a fresh line-up of compelling characters, played by the likes of Angela Griffin, Matt Di Angelo and Griff Rhys Jones, each with their own torrid secrets and lies.

The first episode tells the story of Coopers' head of sales Joe (Happy Valley's Con O'Neill), who's suspicious when he finds his wife Belinda (Halfpenny) acting strangely.

He wonders if she's having an affair, and decides to install hidden cameras around the house to keep an eye on her and their children.

"It opens a whole can of worms," says Halfpenny, whose TV credits also include Waterloo Road, Babylon and Humans. "It's interesting from the way Danny has written it, that you can be in a good place, but if one little seed is planted in your head... Once you decide somebody might be lying to you, it's very easy to collect evidence, because you start to see things in a significantly different way, you start to be very suspicious of someone. It's interesting to watch that in Joe's character – how he starts to drive himself mad."

Ignorance can never be bliss when it comes to TV drama. "I think it can be – or have an honest conversation. But that wouldn't be a very interesting episode," Halfpenny jokes. "People's lives are extraordinary; they're way more interesting most of the time than what we see on television. There's that saying – a lot happens behind closed doors – but it's so true. You just have no idea what is going on with other people, or how they're thinking or what they're up to."

Halfpenny enjoys Brocklehurst's interesting way of portraying the weird, little crazy things people do that you can't believe. "You think, 'What would I do? Would I have said that?' And sometimes the tiniest little lie, for some reason, just gets bigger and bigger and you go along with it."

Halfpenny's off-screen family life – she lives in London with her son, eight-year-old, Harvey-Rhys with ex-husband Craig Conway, and partner, fellow actor Chris Ellis-Stanton – is far more straightforward. But she admits to struggling when she's working away from home.

"I don't know if it ever gets easier," she says of missing her son. "In fact, when they get older and they can vocalise how much they want you home, how much they need you if they have a problem, it's more gutting to not be there."

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Viv Hardwick