Latest news with #AnnabelScholey
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Couple Next Door viewers brand swinging drama '95% gratuitous sex' as it returns for second season with 'unbelievably ridiculous' premiere
The Couple Next Door viewers have branded the swinging drama '95% gratuitous sex' as it returned to our screens for its second season. Series two of the psychological thriller, which is based on the Dutch TV show Nieuwe Buren, premiered on Monday night (July 14). It comes two years after the first series aired on Channel 4 back in November 2023. The programme, written by David Allison and directed by Dries Vos, stars Annabel Scholey, Sam Palladio, Aggy K. Adams, Sendil Ramamurthy, Hugh Dennis, Maimie McCoy, Adam James, Tanya Moodie, Jackie Clune and Barney White. 4OD's synopsis reads: 'The deliciously dark psychological drama returns, as mysterious new neighbour Mia arrives on the cul-de-sac, determined to work her way into the confidence - and the bed - of the couple next door...' And while the first series was a huge hit, many fans have rushed to the internet to share their brutal opinions on the latest. One said on X: 'Just watched the first two episodes of series 2, it's a dreadful, unbelievable storyline, it's ridiculous. 'After a first really good series this was a disappointment.' 'Five percent authentic story and ninety five percent gratuitous sex. A waste of time and energy.' 'This is woeful sh***, just as bad as the first series, even allowing for the titillating scenes which are just plain embarrassing.' Meanwhile others have been very impressed with the new episodes. 'Season 2 is gooood, I can't stop watching atp.' 'This show is a masterpiece.' 'Been looking forward to this #TheCoupleNextdoor.' Many viewers have rushed to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share their thoughts over the new series of The Couple Next Door In the new series Annabel Scholey Annabel plays renowned heart surgeon Charlotte Roberts, who's happily married to consultant anaesthetist Jacob (Sam Palladio). They seem to have a perfect life with busy careers, a large house, nice cars and a loving sex life. But then a red-headed bombshell moves in next door. And patients suddenly start dying Aggy K Adams stars as the mysterious new neighbour, Mia, a nurse who works at the same hospital. She's feisty, outspoken, refuses to obey the hospital hierarchy – and is stunningly beautiful. Soon both Charlotte and Jacob find their worlds being turned upside down by her before Charlotte's millionaire celebrity doctor ex-boyfriend Leo (Sendhil Ramamurthy) re-enters her world. 'The great thing about turning 40 is that I find myself suddenly playing biochemists and heart surgeons, which is hilarious,' says Annabel, who's been acting since she was 13. 'One of the things I love most about my job is getting to experience different worlds, and to play Charlotte I went into an open-heart surgery theatre, which was mind-blowing. 'When I had to do it myself, the heart surgeon I'd been following was in there too, pretending to be learning from me. 'And what I also love about playing women of this age like Charlotte is that she's come to this point in her life where's she's thinking, 'What's next?' She's having a bit of a mid-life crisis. She's achieved everything she wants and then she goes on this journey which sees her unravel. 'As a 40-something woman, that's interesting. You've got to that age where you're confident, you know who you are, what you won't put up with any more. But then you suddenly think, 'What am I supposed to do now?' 'I can feel it myself – I've worked really hard since I left drama school and I feel like I'm not getting really great roles, but I keep thinking, 'What could be next?'' 'The other thing about being in your 40s is when you look in the mirror you aren't necessarily at your peak any more, you start to see signs of ageing, and I love that Charlotte goes on a journey of sexual rediscovery. 'She's hidden that side of herself,her femininity, because she's atop surgeon in quite a masculine world and she's married to someone she's known since she was a student. She becomes awakened physically and mentally, which is really interesting.' As on almost all shows with sexual content now, Annabel worked with an intimacy co-ordinator. She admits she's still getting used to it. 'I've done a lot of sex scenes in my career – I'm often cast in 'sexy' roles and I think because I used to dance for a long time, I'm quite comfortable in my body and the choreographing of these things. 'I've spoken to other actresses of my own age group and this intimacy co-ordinator thing has been a tricky transition for some of us because we were on our own for so long. But I feel like I'm really starting to get used to it, and actually it makes me feel sad we never had this before. There have been some tricky moments in the past.'
Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The Couple Next Door review — C4's hottest drama is still shameless
I wasn't complimentary about series one of The Couple Next Door, calling it overripe ham that began implausibly, ended preposterously and delivered a full house at TV cliché bingo. Which shows what a fat lot I know. It was a success, becoming Channel 4's biggest scripted streaming launch, the first episode getting a million hits in a week. Although is it cynical to suspect that viewers just wanted to see young, attractive swingers bang at it in suburbia? Anyway, I thought, perhaps the second series, set in that same cul-de-sac that bizarrely is supposed to be in Leeds but still looks more like Wisteria Lane, would be less corny and not feature characters so one-dimensional they make stick men look nuanced. Well. The good news is that it is slightly less mad and more layered, though if you keep watching you will see it still shamelessly dangles the sex carrot. No wonder Alan the pervert (Hugh Dennis), in his community service high-vis vest, lives on that street, it's a voyeur's dream. Suffice to say it won't be long before there's some threesome action with two doctors and a nurse and some extramarital sex that is laughably improbable. Mind you, I think most people would find it hard to resist the manipulative, beautiful Norwegian Mia (Aggy K Adams), who had coffee spilt on her scrubs in the first few minutes of appearing, purely so we could see her stripped down to her bra. Annabel Scholey is actually convincing as Lotte, a somewhat buttoned-up, workaholic heart surgeon who schedules 'sex Wednesdays' with her anaesthetist husband, Jacob (Sam Palladio), because 'I'm a very busy woman'. Expect that to change once Mia the hot nurse moves in next door, paying the substantial rent with a mysterious box of cash. Alas, some of the other characters aren't convincing, such as their married friend's new, very young girlfriend (he is separated from his wife), who sulkily declared at their dinner party that she doesn't eat gluten or fish and should have been on castors. Ditto the battleaxe ward matron who is like a Sixties throwback, though for all I know some matrons are still ball-busters. Actually Alan the pervert is a highlight and the show, as it progresses, seems to point to a possible redemption for him. • Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews Anyway, as a series it's as daft as a brush but, on a surface level, it is entertaining. ★★★☆☆ Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix, the best Prime Video TV shows, the best Disney+ shows , the best Apple TV+ shows, the best shows on BBC iPlayer , the best shows on Sky and Now, the best shows on ITVX, the best shows on Channel 4 streaming, the best shows on Paramount+ and our favourite hidden gem TV shows. Don't forget to check our comprehensive TV guide for the latest listings
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Couple Next Door star Annabel Scholey reveals what she really thinks about intimacy co-ordinators - and why she's now getting so many sexy roles in her 40s
Hit show Rivals, the rollicking TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper's bonkbuster novel, opened with a supersonic bang last year when champagne corks popped as journalist Beattie Johnson and lothario Rupert Campbell-Black joined the mile-high club as Concorde reached the speed of sound. Filming the scene was rather less glamorous, reveals actress Annabel Scholey, best known for legal drama The Split, who starred as Beattie opposite Alex Hassell's Rupert. 'Joining the mile-high club was fun and Alex is absolutely gorgeous, such a gentleman, but it wasn't exactly sexy,' she recalls. While some of the flight scenes were filmed on a real Concorde at Bristol's Aviation Museum, a special set had to be built for the naughty moments. 'They had to build a bigger toilet because the actual Concorde's was so small it could barely fit one person in, and this had to fit me, Alex and the director of photography. He was sitting on the loo while we went at it.' She admits she still gets a little nervous before sex scenes and couldn't eat breakfast before filming that one. 'But once you've rehearsed it, done it to the camera a few times, you're kind of bored; two hours doing the same moves and the same sounds!' Rivals fans will be pleased to learn that we'll be seeing a lot more of Beattie in the upcoming second series after she reappeared in the final episode of the first when it was announced she would be hosting a gossip show for Lord (Tony) Baddingham's TV company – which was going up against his foe Rupert's bid for a TV franchise. 'I've got a really nice storyline in series two,' she says. 'Beattie is bad, and I like playing bad – it's much more fun. So there's a lot more to come from her. It's been so good to be back; everyone in that cast is brilliant and everyone loves each other. 'Normally I do shows that involve a fair bit of weeping so it's nice to do some comedy. Once I'd got over the shock of seeing my sex scene, I watched series one as a punter and I loved it. It was a risk because the story was of its time and there was a lot of sexism, but because it was period they've done it very tongue in cheek. I think it came out at exactly the right time and people were ready for the satire. I'm absolutely thrilled I'm getting to wear my mullet wig again.' Wakefield-born Annabel, 41, is one of those slow-burn actresses who suddenly seems to be in everything. Playing naughty, desperate-for-attention middle sister Nina in The Split first put her on the TV landscape; she's also recently starred as Ann-Marie Blake, the niece who catches a murderer in acclaimed true-crime drama The Sixth Commandment, and took a leading role in BAFTA-winning Welsh film Chuck Chuck Baby. We'll be seeing a lot more of her in the coming months thanks not only to Rivals and Prime Video thriller Apollo Has Fallen, but also to the second series of Channel 4's sexy psychological drama The Couple Next Door. 'For a long time I was frustrated not to be doing anything substantial on TV – I was in the theatre for ten years before I did much at all,' she says. 'But it makes sense to me that this is my path, this is my moment.' In the first series of The Couple Next Door, Eleanor Tomlinson's Evie and her husband Pete moved next door to Danny and Becka, before a night of passion between Evie and Danny had disastrous consequences. But you don't need to have seen that to watch the second, which tells a new tale. Annabel plays renowned heart surgeon Charlotte Roberts who's happily married to consultant anaesthetist Jacob (Sam Palladio). They seem to have a perfect life with busy careers, a large house, nice cars and a loving sex life. But then a red-headed bombshell moves in next door. And patients suddenly start dying… Aggy K Adams stars as the mysterious new neighbour, Mia, a nurse who works at the same hospital. She's feisty, outspoken, refuses to obey the hospital hierarchy – and is stunningly beautiful. Soon both Charlotte and Jacob find their worlds being turned upside down by her before Charlotte's millionaire celebrity doctor ex-boyfriend Leo (Sendhil Ramamurthy) re-enters her world. 'The great thing about turning 40 is that I find myself suddenly playing biochemists and heart surgeons, which is hilarious,' says Annabel, who's been acting since she was 13. 'One of the things I love most about my job is getting to experience different worlds, and to play Charlotte I went into an open-heart surgery theatre, which was mind-blowing. When I had to do it myself, the heart surgeon I'd been following was in there too, pretending to be learning from me. 'And what I also love about playing women of this age like Charlotte is that she's come to this point in her life where's she's thinking, 'What's next?' She's having a bit of a mid-life crisis. She's achieved everything she wants and then she goes on this journey which sees her unravel. 'As a 40-something woman, that's interesting. You've got to that age where you're confident, you know who you are, what you won't put up with any more. But then you suddenly think, 'What am I supposed to do now?' I can feel it myself – I've worked really hard since I left drama school and I feel like I'm not getting really great roles, but I keep thinking, 'What could be next?' 'The other thing about being in your 40s is when you look in the mirror you aren't necessarily at your peak any more, you start to see signs of ageing, and I love that Charlotte goes on a journey of sexual rediscovery. She's hidden that side of herself,her femininity, because she's atop surgeon in quite a masculine world and she's married to someone she's known since she was a student. She becomes awakened physically and mentally, which is really interesting.' As on almost all shows with sexual content now, Annabel worked with an intimacy co-ordinator. She admits she's still getting used to it. 'I've done a lot of sex scenes in my career – I'm often cast in 'sexy' roles and I think because I used to dance for a long time, I'm quite comfortable in my body and the choreographing of these things. I've spoken to other actresses of my own age group and this intimacy co-ordinator thing has been a tricky transition for some of us because we were on our own for so long. But I feel like I'm really starting to get used to it, and actually it makes me feel sad we never had this before. There have been some tricky moments in the past.' Annabel divorced her first husband, actor Ciaran McMenamin, two years ago and they share daughter Marnie, who is six. She has since got married again, to pilot Jim Trayhurn, and says life is now a little easier for actors who are mothers. The Couple Next Door, although set in Leeds, was filmed mainly in Antwerp but Annabel was allowed every other Friday off so she could fly home and be with Marnie for the weekend. 'I think they're now much keener to help actors see their children, and that makes all the difference,' she says. 'My mummy guilt is always sky high but I also firmly believe that I want to show her that it's good to follow your passion. I do get the question, 'Do you love your job more than me, Mummy?' And I say, 'Absolutely not. I don't love anything more than you but I do love my job and it's OK to do both.' I want to show her that it's OK and hopefully by the time she's grown up it will be better still. 'When I was filming The Sixth Commandment I was going through my divorce and it was very tough but they looked after me, got me an apartment and I felt taken care of. I think things are shifting in a good way for mums who are working – which is good as I don't feel like men feel the guilt that we do. It's one of the best things about Rivals as I don't live too far from where it's being filmed in the West Country so I'm working from home, which is fantastic.' Marnie hasn't seen much of Annabel's work – although she's obsessed with a 2014 musical she starred in called Walking On Sunshine – and she knows there will come a day when someone will make a comment about some of her sexier roles. 'She's very cool, not judgmental; she's an adventurer and will be a woman of the world. But also, I'm sure she'll find me deeply embarrassing. She already does at times. But I'd like to think she will think, most of all, 'Mum, you followed your dream and you made a success of it' and that will override anything else.'
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Now is not the time for a sexy drama with a potentially murderous nurse
The first series of The Couple Next Door (Channel 4) was an erotic thriller set in Leeds, a concept I'm still laughing about two years later. It was about a nice young couple who became embroiled in a relationship with their neighbours, who happened to be Britain's hottest swingers, and ended up as a case of attempted murder. It did good business, ratings-wise, so we're back in the neighbourhood for another spin. Same street, different couples, although the local Peeping Tom (Hugh Dennis), is still around, doing a spot of community service. This time, the nice young duo are doctors: heart surgeon Lottie (Annabel Scholey, a dead ringer for the Princess of Wales) and anaesthetist Jacob (Sam Palladio). Along comes a foxy redhead, Mia, who pitches up at the hospital one day to start work as a nurse. Soon she has moved into the house directly across the street from Lottie and Jacob. She wastes no time befriending them, and by 'befriending' I mean trying to seduce them both. Which doesn't take long. Until the end of episode three, in fact, if you want to skip straight to the soft porn. 'Do you think I go around Europe having threesomes?' Mia asks, and the answer on this evidence is: absolutely, yes. If you're wondering how a nurse can afford to rent the kind of house suitable for a double-income household of hospital consultants – well, Lottie and Jacob wonder about that too. Everything about Mia is mysterious. Series one felt as if it was trying to do something different, but series two is the familiar tale of a malevolent female who worms her way into a household (Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, etc). Mia is running from something in her past, which is glimpsed in flashbacks. She claims to be from Norway, which doesn't impress the ward sister, who huffs: 'You might think that makes you exotic but we have all sorts in here, so don't go thinking you're special.' There is a taste issue – the suggestion of a nurse being involved in patient deaths inevitably brings to mind Lucy Letby – but you don't come to Channel 4 looking for good taste. Overall, it's enjoyably trashy despite an unsophisticated script and some hammy acting. The whole thing feels unreal. Aimed at an international market (it's a co-production with Starz in the US), it maintains the glorious fiction that the Leeds suburbs look exactly like the set of Desperate Housewives.
Metro
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
TV fans have just hours to binge ‘bonkers' drama before new season launches
One of the hottest entries into the 'it's terrible but I can't stop watching' 2023 category of TV drama was over on Channel 4. The first season of the frothy swingers drama The Couple Next Door was pretty panned by critics – with a 38% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – but viewers couldn't get enough. In fact, the season became Channel 4's biggest scripted streaming launch ever, with the first episode garnering more than a million streams in its first week. Starring Sam Heughan and Eleanor Tomlinson, the six-part run saw a young couple move to the 'burbs, only to become a bit overly friendly with their neighbours – with dire consequences. The second season turns the show into an anthology, with only an initial nod to the couples of the first season via a newspaper frontpage, before we meet a new foursome set to swap beds. The one mainstay, besides the Belgian filming location masking for outer Leeds, is Hugh Dennis's cul-de-sac creep Alan (although he's now somewhat reformed, doing community service). To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The new season focuses on the medically inclined power couple of Charlotte (Annabel Scholey) and her husband Jacob (Sam Palladio). She's a heart surgeon, he's an anaesthetist. But when a new nurse Mia (Aggy K Adams) joins their hospital and then decides to rent the vacant house next door to them, their marriage is turned upside down. A complicated situation is worsened by the return of Charlotte's handsome and clearly-still-into-her ex Leo (Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy). Senior TV Reporter Rebecca Cook shares her take… If you enjoyed the first season of the swinging Leeds neighbours, you'll be happy to hear this is more of the same – and perhaps better. But if you were among the naysayers, probably best to look away now (it's not improved that considerably). They've done away with some of the yawnsome filler of last season (criminal conspiracy, the strains of local journalism albeit from someone who can afford a humongous house), instead focusing on the character drama with a side of kink. This erotic entanglement is a touch less silly than the last, largely because of one thing: Annabel Scholey. The Split star elevates what is quite soapy material because she's just very good at what she does. Even when it's shooting dangerous looks from under some scrubs. The mysterious Mia from Norway crashes into the couple's 'sex Wednesdays' routine for scenes that are, yes, still a bit overplayed. But if you're coming into this second season from the first, you already know what you're in for. Loosely adapted from the Dutch drama Fatal Injections, the first season was billed a cheesy erotic thriller. Duncan Whittaker wrote on Google reviews that he 'loved it,' adding: 'The ending was such a bonkers bit of fun.' More Trending Jo Austin added: 'It was all a bit daft but entertaining and enjoyable enough.' However, not everyone was completely on board with the season (hence the hate watch adjacent reputation) with Helen Johnson labelling it 'ridiculous!' before adding: 'I've only seen one episode but I laughed several times (and it's not a comedy!).' Not holding back, Dean Skutela added: 'One of the worst programmes I've ever watched. I kept praying for it to get better but it just kept getting worse.' View More » The Couple Next Door season 2 is available to stream on Channel 4, with episode 1 airing on the channel at 9pm. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: All 6 episodes of 'compelling' mystery thriller are streaming now on Netflix MORE: 'Sinister' crime thriller spin-off smashes to top of the Amazon Prime chart MORE: Blind date takes a cheeky turn as woman, 58, announces plans to 'snog' 24-year-old
