Emotional BAGGAGE

Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves play a struggling couple on a holiday across Europe

- ELAINE REILLY

When Douglas Petersen’s wife Connie turns to him in the middle of the night and announces that she’s thinking of leaving their two-decades-long marriage, his orderly existence is thrown into heartbreak and confusion.

Strait-laced scientist Douglas, played by Rev star Tom Hollander, runs the full scale of emotions – from shock to anger – and that’s before the sun has risen. Will he be able to save the marriage, or will Connie (Saskia Reeves) make a new life on her own?

That’s the premise of BBC1’s poignant new comedy-drama Us, adapted from David Nicholls’ novel of the same name.

Loaded with laughs and reflective flashbacks to when logical Douglas and free-spirited Connie fell in love, the four-parter also stars Iain De Caestecker and Gina Bramhill as younger versions of the couple, as we see how Douglas and Connie got together and the trials and tribulations of their married life.

In this week’s opening episode, Connie confesses that now their teenage son Albie (Tom Taylor) is due to leave for college, she longs for a new life on her own. She tells her husband: ‘I just feel that things between us might have run their course… I want change! I need to find something else.’

However, Douglas, who until this point considered himself happily married, spots a chance for reconciliation when Connie suggests they still embark on their planned grand tour of Europe before going their separate ways.

Douglas resolves to change his fuddy-duddy ways, win back his wife and repair his relationship with Albie, who accompanies his parents on the trip. But when the mission doesn’t quite go to plan, will it ruin the chances of reconciliation?