In People Who Knew Me, Rosamund Pike is Connie Prynne, a 41-year-old who lives in California with her 13-year-old daughter, Claire. Faced with her own mortality after a cancer diagnosis, Connie is reckoning with a secret from her past. We learn how, 14 years earlier, Connie’s name was Emily and she lived in New York with her husband, Drew. Emily, who worked as a copywriter at the World Trade Center and supported Drew financially while he trained to be a chef, began an affair in frustration as her dreams drifted out of reach. Then, on the morning of September 11 2001, she was late leaving for work; on seeing two planes fly into the twin towers on TV, she impulsively turned off her phone and left her life behind.
If this summary seems to spill the entire plot of People Who Knew Me, fear not, since all this is revealed at the start. The suspense of this pacy, bingeable 10-part drama, which has shades of David Fincher’s film Gone Girl (which also starred Pike), is derived not from Connie faking her own death but from her efforts, in the wake of her illness, to put things right. Written and directed by Daniella Isaacs and based on a 2016 novel by Kim Hooper, People Who Knew Me is a joint production by the BBC and Merman, the production company co-founded by the actor Sharon Horgan. Merman’s TV credits including the peerless Bad Sisters and This Way Up, though this is the company’s first venture into audio.
You can see why Horgan and the BBC jumped on it. There’s a pleasing moral ambiguity at the heart of the story, which is told in parallel timelines: Connie might seem monstrous but, as the bones of the story are fleshed out and through Pike’s brittle performance, this perception starts to shift.
The series isn’t perfect — Hugh Laurie, who plays Paul, a cancer survivor who Connie meets at a support group, feels woefully underused. And there are gaps in the story that nag throughout. How, for instance, did Emily/Connie disappear and make it all the way to California without leaving a paper trail? And how did she create her new identity and then give birth to a child without being found out?
Nevertheless, it is refreshing to find a BBC drama that doesn’t bludgeon the listener with exposition and overdone sound effects (the sound design here is on point). It is largely down to the efforts of podcasters, with their subtler and more contemporary approach, that audio drama can now hold its head high after years in the doldrums. Long may that continue.
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Art-Culture News Click Here
