London’s Crazy Property Market Gets the Hitchcockian Treatment It Deserves in ITV Thriller ‘Our House’

variety.com:

Manori Ravindran International EditorSPOILER ALERT: Do not read this story if you haven’t watched Episode 4 of “Our House.”As London’s Machiavellian property market continues to feel like a real-life thriller, U.K.

broadcaster ITV’s drama “Our House” capitalizes on every buyer’s worst fear of losing their hard-earned home.Starring Tuppence Middleton (“Downton Abbey”) and Martin Compston (“Line of Duty”), the four-part thriller from “Sanditon” producers Red Planet Pictures is adapted from Louise Candlish’s 2018 novel of the same name, and may actually be the only thing more anxiety-inducing than closing on anything larger than a garden shed within the M25.Middleton stars as Fi Lawson, a woman who returns home after a weekend away to discover strangers moving into her house — and her husband Bram (Compston) and children nowhere in sight.

The new owners insist that Bram and Fi have been across every part of the sale, but she has no recollection of any of it. And despite her most petulant demands to “Get the fuck out of my house!” the interlopers aren’t budging. “It taps into a primal fear,” explains Belinda Campbell, joint managing director of Red Planet. “As we like to say, ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle,’ so homes are hugely important and they’re all bound up with our identity.”Screenwriter Simon Ashdown (“EastEnders”), who adapted Candlish’s novel, also highlights the psychology behind owning property, particularly in a hot market like London, where the average asking price for a house in February was £667,000 ($872,000), according to housing portal Rightmove.“Obviously, Fi and Bram are a middle-class couple, but they’re not super rich — they had a bit of money and bought into the market at the right time,” says.