Hate thy neighbour

Suburban bliss gets cracked wide open in The Feud, coming soon to 5. hears more from stars Jill Halfpenny and Rupert Penry-Jones

- RACHAEL DAVIS

MOST of us have experience with annoying neighbours. Whether it’s inexplicably always living next door to someone who loves listening to drum and bass at 11pm or dealing with quibbles over whose responsibility it is to fix a broken fence panel, dealing with residential annoyances is part of daily life.

However, new series The Feud explores what happens when neighbourly disputes get kicked up a notch.

The 5 drama, which stars Waterloo Road and The Cuckoo's Jill Halfpenny and Spooks’ Rupert Penry-Jones as Emma and John Barnett, follows a couple living in peaceful suburbia. They get along well with their neighbours - Sonia (Amy Nuttall) and Alan (Ray Fearon), and Derek (James Fleet) and Barbara (Tessa Peake-Jones), until they announce their kitchen extension.

As objections to the building plans are raised, unexpected and life-threatening secrets are unearthed and Emma’s dreams of upgrading her home twist into obsessive paranoia, fear, and danger - resulting in incalculable consequences for the couple and other residents of Shelbury Drive.

Here stars Jill, 49, and Rupert, 54, tell us about the not-so-neighbourly disputes.

So, what is The Feud?

JH: The Feud is a tense thriller. No one is being honest about what they're doing or how they're feeling, which makes for exciting television. Even my character Emma, who feels she’s deeply honest, still lies.

It's a scenario we can all relate to. Most people have WhatsApp groups, and most people have experienced neighbours having work done to their house. But where The Feud takes us is the stuff of nightmares.