Out There turns Martin Clunes into a working-class hero – it’s a shame the plot is so rambling
Share:
Wales-set show is a dramatic pancake where the core tension is as slippery and inscrutable as some of the local accents. What makes you watch a new TV show? Perhaps it has a star name, or it’s getting rave reviews, or has a premise that just grabs you from the off. A high-school chemistry teacher starts cooking meth to pay his medical bills. Down and outs compete in violent playground games to try to win a life-changing prize. Office workers undergo a medical procedure to sever their work self from their home self. Bam! From the moment you hear about these shows, you’re intrigued. And then there’s Out There, a new ITV drama, whose premise I will try to explain in the next paragraph.
![[Clunes and Ashbourne Serkis in ‘Out There’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/17/11/newFile-1.jpg)
Martin Clunes is Nathan Williams, a farmer in rural Wales. He lives alone with his son, Johnny (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), after the death of his French wife a couple of years earlier. “One day it’ll all be yours,” Nathan tells Johnny, looking out over the undulating Welsh hills, like Mufasa instructing baby Simba. But their idyll is disrupted by several seemingly unconnected events. Drones start buzzing over Nathan’s land. A mysterious besuited stranger Scott Foley (played by Michael Obiora, sadly, not famous TV actor Scott Foley) enquires about renting their barn. An elderly neighbour dies, gruesomely, by suicide. And Johnny starts to fall back in with local drug dealer Rhys (Gerran Howell) and his sister Sadie (Carly-Sophia Davies), who he’s always been sweet on.
“Martin Clunes hasn’t been in anything in a while,” you can almost hear a development executive at ITV noting. “What if Martin Clunes goes full Liam Neeson on some local drug peddlers?” someone pitches. “Perfect!” a chorus volleys back. “And he’s Welsh, for some reason,” another voice adds. “Ideal!” “And, to show that he’s an old-school badass, could the show open with a sequence where he shoots a drone with a shotgun?” the work experience kid asks. “Flawless, no notes – let’s start shooting!” And so, we end up with Out There, a dramatic pancake where the core tension is as slippery and inscrutable as some of the local accents.
