Hollington Drive: the latest of TV's distracting obsession with designer-kitchen sink dramas

As she’s demonstrated in everything from Line of Duty to Bleak House, from Poppy Shakespeare to Motherland, Anna Maxwell Martin is one of our most accomplished TV actresses. In her new drama, though, the double Bafta-winner gets upstaged by her own kitchen.

ITV’s unsettling psychological thriller Hollington Drive, created by fast-rising screenwriter Sophie Petzal, is a missing child mystery set in a seemingly idyllic suburb. “The Drive”, as residents call it, resembles an upmarket Brookside, with its architectural houses populated by hip young couples. Leafy “cool-de-sacs”, after all, are the latest property trend.

When viewers first meet Maxwell Martin’s character, Theresa, she and her too-nice-to-be-true husband, Fraser (Rhashan Stone), are hosting a barbecue on a balmy summer’s evening. As the tense Theresa rushes back and forth, fetching quinoa salads and gourmet side dishes, we get plenty of looks at her open-plan kitchen. It is distractingly swanky. It almost deserves to share top billing.

There’s an enviably expansive island with a neat row of mid-century bar stools. There’s a double oven, double-fronted fringe and Belfast sink with chrome hose tap - seemingly compulsory in TV interiors nowadays. The sage-painted walls (Farrow & Ball, I’d wager) are tastefully hung with framed artwork. The fruit bowl looks like a still-life. Pulses are displayed in Kilner jars. The kitchen is implausibly clean and ordered for a family of four. Every surface gleams. The six-slot toaster is so shiny that at one point, the camera films its reflection. Chopping boards are spotless and utensils look brand new. There’s an Instagrammable shelf of unthumbed Ottolenghi and Leon cookbooks. Without looking inside, you just know the pasta recipe pages aren’t spattered with tomato sauce like a normal person’s.

It flows seamlessly into an equally chic lounge area with Ercol furniture and an L-shaped sofa. Light floods in from skylights and bifold doors, opening out onto a stylish terrace and manicured lawn. Even the barbecue looks futuristic, its flames appearing to emerge from nowhere. Later in the episode, there’s a scene set upstairs in Fraser’s teenage daughter’s bedroom. She and Theresa chat while perched in preposterously over-designed chairs, as if it’s perfectly normal.

“The Drive” is a strange Stepford-like enclave located somewhere in the Midlands. In the mornings, health-conscious couples workout with dumbbells in their gardens and make each other smoothies. By night, they stand around clutching vast goblets of wine (the women) or bottled beer (the men). Their conversations are about smartwatches and sourdough, broadband speeds and diet “cheat days”.

Marriages feel strained. So-called friendships revolve around pass-agg one-upmanship. The four-parter’s soft-focus setting might be ideal for disquieting drama but would you want to actually live in Hollington Drive? Everyone in this claustrophobic community is smug yet silently despairing. Sure, your 10-year-old might disappear in the woods but the interior decor is to die for, darling.

The term “wealth porn” has been coined for dramas about the super-rich elite, such as Succession and Billions. Well, the domestic equivalent is now “worktop porn”. Come for the twisting whodunit plot. Stay for the Pinterest-friendly kitchens.

Hollington Drive is just the latest example of TV’s recent obsession with implausibly fancy homes (kitchens a speciality). Are broadcasters trying to outdo each other with more and more opulent properties? Are they making compelling drama or glorified home makeover mood boards? Are we watching for entertainment or home decor “inspo”?

A viewing nation reared on Grand Designs builds, the Bake Off tent and Nigella Lawson cookery programmes now seem to demand high-spec homes and aspirational lifestyles as standard. The trend can be traced back to two hit shows, one from either side of the Atlantic.

In 2015, writer Mike Bartlett’s BBC marriage melodrama Doctor Foster was a sort of modern-day Medea about a glamorous GP (Suranne Jones) who suspected her property mogul husband (Bertie Carvel) was having an affair. The couple’s incendiary showdowns invariably took place in what was dubbed the “power kitchen”, the industrial-meets-country centerpiece of their glassy Home Counties mansion. Big ratings and Bafta wins followed.

Two years later came Doctor Foster’s US equivalent, HBO miniseries Big Little Lies. Hollywood divas Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman starred as yummy mummies from Monterey, California who became embroiled in a murder investigation. The action unfolded in beachfront villas with squishy beigeness and sweeping staircases indoors, fire pits and infinity pools outdoors. So centre-stage were the characters’ homes, they spawned articles in Vogue and Architectural Digest. Again, blockbuster ratings and Emmy awards followed.

Both Doctor Foster and Big Little Lies lasted two hit series apiece and spawned an entire sub-genre of glossy supersoap imitators. In the US, most seemed to star Witherspoon and/or Kidman - the likes of The Undoing, The Morning Show, Little Fires Everywhere and Nine Perfect Strangers.

Here in the UK, we’ve been force-fed a diet of pale Doctor Foster imitations – middling primetime potboilers such as Liar, The Split, Deadwater Fell, Flesh & Blood, Marcella, The Nest and Keeping Faith. All of them seem to involve spectacular coastal piles or high-lux townhouses. The pulpy plots might verge on trashy but such series have enough on-trend trimmings (swish homes! designer offices! statement coats!) to make them feel like prestige boxsets.

The trend is now being taken to its logical extreme, with houses themselves becoming central characters in dramas. This spring, ITV’s Finding Alice found widowed Keeley Hawes getting to grips with the gimmicky “smart home” built by her husband, who promptly fell down his own floating staircase and died. Later this autumn comes The Girl Before on BBC1, about the cat-and-mouse relationship between a woman who moves into a minimalist dream house and the aloof architect who designed it.

Streaming services, especially Netflix, increasingly make their original dramas timeless and location non-specific to maximise their global appeal. Series such as Sex Education, Behind Her Eyes, Clickbait, The End of the F***ing World and its slate of Harlan Coben thrillers are set in a hyper-real realm which feel half-British, half-American, semi-retro in styling. One thing’s certain, though - the houses are all straight out of a glossy magazine.

Outside of soap operas, northern sitcoms or gritty kitchen sink dramas, TV nowadays seems afraid to show normal people in normal homes. However, broadcasters should beware prioritising style over substance. When your leading actors and lovingly written scripts are getting upstaged by the fixtures and fittings, it’s rarely a good sign. More storytelling and fewer hose-taps, please.