Sins of the FATHER

JOE ARMSTRONG on his complex guest role as a bereaved dad-of-four

- IAN MACEWAN

THE BAY

WEDNESDAY, 9PM, ITV1 DRAMA

The last time Joe Armstrong played a builder on TV, he was overseeing a kidnapping and extortion plot involving James Norton’s villainous Tommy Lee Royce as Ashley Cowgill in BBC1 thriller Happy Valley.

So viewers can be forgiven for being a little suspicious of his latest screen incarnation – The Bay’s bereaved construction worker Dean Metcalf.

Losing his wife Beth in a terrible house fire, the father-of- four soon found himself in the frame for arson as it transpired his business was experiencing financial difficulties and following revelations that his marriage wasn’t as happy as first claimed.

As season four of the popular crime drama continues on ITV1 this week, the water is muddied further when hands-off dad Dean announces he’s returning to work, a decision that shocks his traumatised kids as well as their Family Liaison Officer, DS Jenn Townsend (played by Marsha Thomason).