PERFECT PARENTS

27 December, 2006 by The_Boss

ITV1 Thursday 28th December 2006 9:00pm to 11:00pm

In his first television role since Dr Who Christopher Eccleston takes the lead in a controversial ITV drama PERFECT PARENTS.

Eccleston (Dr Who, The Second Coming, 28 Days Later) stars alongside Susannah Harker (Intimacy, Pride and Prejudice, House of Cards) in this thriller about a couple who pretend to be Catholic to get their daughter into a good school. Stuart and Alison don't care about God, they just want the best for their Lucy. But what they thought was a simple lie spirals into fraud, blackmail and murder.

Leslie Manville (Poirot: Cards on the Table, North and South, Promoted to Glory) is the principal at St. Mary's Catholic School and she's used to desperate parents trying every trick in the book to get in.

David Warner (Sweeney Todd, Hornblower, Titanic, The Omen) is the priest who offers to help Stuart and Alison – at a price. Also starring Brendan Coyle (Prime Suspect, The Commander, Jericho, Omagh).

Talking of his character, Christopher Eccleston says: “Stuart is a decent middle class man who loves his wife and family. He is very content until he realises that his daughter faces six years in a state school which is educationally and socially inadequate. I can understand why Stuart and Alison take the action they do. They want the best for their child who means more to them than life itself – which is a perfectly normal way to feel.

“If they don’t get her into a faith school they feel she may well become a victim of violent crime, drug use or at the very least an inadequate education. They see many other parents “pretending” to be Catholic or otherwise and as they have no religious beliefs they have no moral qualms about “playing the game”.

“I think Stuart in particular is very sensitive to the hypocrisy and inequality that organised religion practices and preaches and he is not prepared to allow his daughter to become a victim of it – there is also an element of revenge, Stuart feels that religion demands respect without doing anything to earn it.”

Susannah Harker adds: “I think most people watching will recognise Alison and Stuart. They are a typical, middle class couple with a child on the brink of moving into the secondary state school system. They both work but can’t afford to send their daughter to private school.

“Being a mum myself I can identify with Alison. I had to think about schools ridiculously early on, as any parent does. Now more than ever, ironically as our education system is failing us, children are becoming the new religion. We want them to achieve, be successful and fulfilled at school.

“The discrepancies between good and bad schools in London are so stark. It doesn’t help that we’re feeding into that problem as a society because we’re all so concerned with looking after our own and people are becoming a bit feverish about getting their kids into the ‘right’ school.”


PERFECT PARENTS is written and directed by Joe Ahearne (Dr Who, Ultraviolet, This Life) and produced by Nicole Cauverien. The executive producers are Shefali Malhoutra (Losing Gemma, Kindness of Strangers, Bloodlines) and Andy Harries, Controller of Drama and Comedy for ITV Productions.