Connie Nielsen stars in tense Channel 4 drama Close to Me

Amnesia is never convenient, but there can’t be too many better times to suddenly lose all recollection of the past 12 months of your life. A winter pandemic surge is still feared, working from home is still the norm, England’s football team still has no trophy since 1966 — you’d basically be where you were in autumn 2020.

Then again, it’s possible that other people have had a more eventful year. Fifty-something Jo Harding certainly suspects she might have, after recovering from a dramatic fall down the stairs — which is where we first meet her, drifting out of consciousness in a crimson pool. Waking up from a week-long coma, she discovers that she possesses no memories of the past year other than some salacious flashbacks that seem to suggest she has been having an affair. Could that have had something to do with her accident? Was it an accident at all?

Channel 4’s new suspense series Close to Me takes the well-known soap opera trope of memory loss and attempts to repurpose it as the central plot device of a po-faced drama. It quickly transpires that the premise itself doesn’t feel much less contrived despite the casting of big-name actors Connie Nielsen and Christopher Eccleston or the thriller-style creeping camerawork and eerie score. But there is something almost refreshing — amid the current glut of procedurals that follow detectives solving grisly crimes — about a character acting as the sole sleuth investigating the mystery of her own recent life.

Ordinarily this kind of case would be cracked in the time it takes to open up about three apps. But unfortunately (or should that be suspiciously?) Jo’s phone is nowhere to be seen. Her husband, Rob, also isn’t much help. He replies to any direct question that his wife asks him about the last year with either a lie or a condescending reminder that she’s confused or not herself. With energy prices soaring he might do well to turn his gaslight off.

When it comes to TV thrillers, Occam’s razor proves to be something of a useless tool — surely a six-episode arc won’t boil down to Rob being as much of a shifty schemer as we currently see him through Jo’s anxious eyes?

Either way, we can only hope that there is a plot-mandated reason for there being more chemistry in an abandoned laboratory than between Ecclestone and Nielsen in this first episode. There’s just about enough tension brewing in a pacy last few minutes to ensure we’ll probably be back to find out next week.

★★★☆☆

On Channel 4 from November 7 at 9pm