The Couple Next Door review: A steamy thriller where even putting out the bins is raunchy, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

The Couple Next Door

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Julius Caesar: The Making Of A Dictator 

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Back before dating apps and swingers’ websites, pampas grass was the discreet badge of the suburban sex maniac.

A clump of towering fronds by the front gate was supposed to signal wide open marriages, which must have caused some embarrassment to couples whose sense of adventure was strictly confined to the garden centre.

Eleanor Tomlinson and Sam Heughan, as neighbours Evie and Danny in The Couple Next Door (Ch4), use less subtle devices to advertise their eagerness for a spot of wife-swapping. He revs his motorbike at her, before she clings on as he takes her for a spin round the block.

Then they put the bins out in the pouring rain and gaze at each other, soaked and panting. Recycling has never looked so raunchy.

Danny’s wife, Becka (Jessica De Gouw), a yoga teacher, is unlikely to object. When they have friends over to dinner, she greets them at the door in stockings and suspenders, and not much else.

Eleanor Tomlinson and Sam Heughan, as neighbours Evie and Danny in The Couple Next Door (Ch4), use less subtle devices to advertise their eagerness for a spot of wife-swapping

‘So good to have some new young blood on the street,’ she purred, as Evie and gormless husband Pete (Alfred Enoch) arrived with a furniture van.

Probably the commuter belt has always been like this. There was always a hint of swappery about The Good Life, with Margo getting squiffy and flirting with Tom, while Jerry eyed Barbara over the hedge and blushed when she caught him looking.

And who knows what Reggie Perrin’s wife Elizabeth got up to, while he was at the office fantasising about a harem with the girls from the typing pool?

Much of the first episode of The Couple Next Door, which continues tonight, involved steamy clinches in full view of the street. Hugh Dennis, as lecherous old Alan, was taking full advantage, with a telescope trained on their windows from his spare bedroom — though he wouldn’t see much if his lens kept steaming up.

Alan is so obsessed with Becka that he’s even signed up for her yoga classes. Trying to keep his balance on one leg while ogling the ladies in their leotards, Hugh made him seem both creepy and hilarious. It isn’t hard to imagine his character Toby in Lee Mack’s sitcom Not Going Out behaving in ways just as pervy.

Evie was pregnant when we first met her but she lost the baby, which meant 20 minutes of glum grief and sad pop ballads. This six-part drama tries too hard to be emotional and moving, which is a nuisance when our expectations were undemanding to begin with. All we ask from this type of formulaic domestic thriller is some heavy petting, a lurid subplot or two, and a murderous denouement.

If one thing is guaranteed in Julius Caesar: The Making Of A Dictator (BBC2), it’s a murderous denouement

The title character of the BBC 2 programme is played by Andonis James Anthony

If one thing is guaranteed in Julius Caesar: The Making Of A Dictator (BBC2), it’s a murderous denouement. Historian Tom Holland calls it ‘the most thrilling story in Western history,’ though compared to Gladiator or Spartacus this retelling of ancient plots is a bit low-budget to be thrilling.

It is thoroughly absorbing, though, rattling through Caesar’s rise to power via a combination of ruthless alliances and contempt for tradition. Silent tableaux illustrate each episode, with Andonis James Anthony as the brooding Caesar, who was apparently accompanied around Rome by a melodramatic raven.

There’s a touch of Boris about the captions: Cupiditas Honorem translates as Lust For Office, for example.

Former Cabinet minister Rory Stewart is one of the talking heads. ‘I was a politician,’ he reminded us, in case we’d forgotten him (perish the thought).

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but the actor playing Caesar’s arch-enemy Cato (Orlando Brooke) could be Rory’s brother — the same boyish face with a wide mouth and big teeth. Et tu, Rory?

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