Ayling-Ellis is in the driving seat of this creaky bus of a drama

Dramas centring around deafness seem to be like buses - you wait ages for one, and then two come along at once.

- Philip Cunnington on Code of Silence

And like BBC's Reunion, this week's new ITV drama Code of Silence (ITV1, Sun/Mon, 9pm) also stars former EastEnder and Strictly champ Rose Ayling-Ellis.

It's not her fault that her two starring roles have been scheduled together, but Code of Silence suffers in comparison with the harder-edged Reunion.

In the new ITV show, Ayling-Ellis's Alison is a young woman in flux - her relationship has broken down, she's living at home with her mum and under threat from a new landlord and she has two dull jobs to help her pay the rent.

One of those dull jobs is in a police station canteen, which brings her to the attention of coppers DI James Marsh (Andrew Buchan) and DS Ashleigh Francis (Charlotte Ritchie).

They're tracking a gang of robbers planning its next job, and while they can get close enough to the group to get video surveillance, and they can track the text messages of the gang boss's driver, they can't apparently hear what they're saying.