The Light in the Hall review – Joanna Scanlan shines in a wintry thriller to curl up with

Back to work after Christmas, New Year and the extra days off that have accumulated along the way. A slow reacclimatisation – the sleepy morning commute by a body unused to being heaved out of bed before nature would require it, a slow pad through defamiliarised corridors to a dusty desk, the computer switched on with a weary sigh. And so the grind begins.

Perhaps it is a good thing that the first episode of The Light in the Hall/Y Golau (Channel 4 and S4C) mirrors this process and state of mind so well. A plunge into tense, unforgiving drama might be a shock to the system right now. Anyway, if that is what you want, there’s Happy Valley.

For those of us who have not yet cast off our seasonal somnolence and still wish to be eased into things, a thriller without too much in the way of thrills hits the spot. And the first episode of this new drama is certainly a gentle introduction; it takes an hour to introduce us to the very simple setup.

Eighteen years ago, teenager Ela Roberts disappeared from the quiet, small town of Llanemlyn. Her boyfriend, Joe (Iwan Rheon), was arrested and convicted of her murder, although her body has never been found. Joe is now about to be released on parole. He has never given a motive for killing Ela and, although he does not deny the crime, he has always claimed amnesia around the event. No, I’m not sure how that stands up either.

Ela’s mother, Sharon, played by the always brilliant Joanna Scanlan, has kept the light on in the hall for her ever since – not in hope, because she accepts that Ela must be dead and wishes only for Joe to reveal what he did with her body, but in memoriam. She still “sees” her daughter around the house, and Scanlan captures the bustling, empty energy of a woman assailed by a terrible grief who must continue for the sake of her remaining daughter, Greta (Annes Elwy), and in case Joe ever reveals the information she craves. “I’m genuinely surprised I haven’t got cancer from hating him so much.”

Cat Donato (Alexandra Roach), a childhood friend of Ela, is now a young, ambitious investigative journalist. She spends most of the hour being persuaded by her colleagues and (unnaturally gentle) editor to write about the case now that Joe is out of prison. I cannot tell you how much less than an hour it would take to persuade a young, ambitious investigative journalist of this in real life, nor how swiftly the story might have moved without this unnecessary brake on, but here we are and let’s not start 2023 with any more complaints than we must.

Most of the boxes you would expect are ticked. Greta’s resentment of the way her sister’s presumed murder has hung over her life pours out as her wedding day approaches. Sharon gives her kitchen cupboards a good scrubbing whenever life threatens to overwhelm her. Joe, who is staying in a halfway house while on parole, is menaced by a fellow occupant whose malevolent interest in him only increases when he sees Joe being visited by Cat. Cat is sleeping with her editor (which doesn’t explain his gentleness, no). Joe visits his ailing mother in her care home and she causes a scene. Sharon’s beloved aged cat, on which she has spent thousands of pounds for treatment to keep it alive at all costs, finally dies. One of the last scenes is Greta retrieving Ela’s diary from its hiding place under her chest of drawers.

The Light in the Hall is at its strongest in the interpersonal scenes. The friendship between Sharon and Dai (Morgan Hopkins) is beautifully and tenderly drawn and Sharon’s tyrannical oversight of the bereavement group she runs and the members’ forbearance is lovely, as well as preventing Sharon becoming an anodyne saintly-grieving-mother figure. Greta’s refusal to join her mother’s “Murderwang! Gang” struck an obliquely enlivening note, too.

Assuming the pace picks up in coming episodes – and it must if anything is to happen, let alone be resolved in the next five hours – there will be enough to reward viewing. If it doesn’t – well, finish the chocolate and leftover Baileys and we’ll try again in a bit.