THE SECRET – the BAFTA-nominated crime drama from writer/director Stuart Urban – has entered the weekly Netflix Top 10 for most-watched series in the UK.
Credit: Netflix UK
Starring James Nesbitt (whose performance was nominated for Best Actor at the 2017 Royal Television Society awards) and Genevieve O’Reilly, THE SECRET is a chilling four-part series based on the events that occurred between 1991 and 2011, and the extreme actions taken by dentist Colin Howell and Sunday school teacher Hazel Buchanan to enable their illicit affair.
Originally broadcast on ITV in 2016 to critical acclaim, viewers on Netflix are re-discovering Stuart’s gripping series, and the dark true story behind it. The series won Best Drama at the 2016 Royal Television Society’s Northern Ireland awards, as well as garnering nominations for Best Miniseries at the BAFTAs and Best Drama Series at the Broadcast Awards in 2017.
About Stuart Urban
Stuart is an award-winning writer, director and executive producer who has worked across both film and TV for more than thirty years.
After honing his craft working on long-running series ‘The Bill’ and ‘Bergerac’, Stuart won the BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama in 1993 for his Falklands War drama AN UNGENTLEMANLY ACT. He would follow this up in 1996 with a second BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial, for his directorial work on the BBC’s seminal series OUR FRIENDS IN THE NORTH.
His theatrical writer/director credits include PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED, REVELATION and MAY I KILL U? He is also a celebrated documentary maker, with the BIFA-nominated TOVARISCH, I AM NOT DEAD – telling the story of his own father’s escape from both the Russian Gulags and his family’s fate in the Holocaust – and the recent Sky crime documentary THE MYSTERY OF SUZY LAMPLUGH.
Praise for THE SECRET:
‘The real achievement of Stuart Urban’s superb script was in capturing the weird balance of religious devotion and sexual obsession that seemed to normalize the relationship in Howell and Buchanan’s minds… THE SECRET was masterly, an excellent reason to stay in on Friday nights to come’ – Gerard O’Donovan, The Daily Telegraph
‘Startling…. resembles a darkly comic Ulster version of ‘The Affair’, should give…ITV a hit for viewers who find ‘The Durrells’ too twee. Compelling …confirms (N Ireland) as a powerhouse of TV drama.’ – Mark Lawson, The Guardian
‘I can’t remember a better portrayal of suburban charm hiding suburban evil…it’s hard to create suspense when you already know the ending. But in this case...it was still a nailbiter.’ – Matt Rudd, The Sunday Times
‘A kind of Shakespearean drama of passion and repentance, really powerful and deep.’ – Rev. Richard Coles, Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4
‘A terrific dramatization…I have watched ahead and it only gets better…truly chilling…there being nothing quite so terrifying as a man convinced of his own righteousness.’ – Euan Ferguson, The Observer
‘Told with passion and power…the sort of tale we’ve seen many times before, yet what made THE SECRET so interesting was the way Stuart Urban’s smart script dealt with it… Urban sensitively depicted a close-knit community where religion was central.’ – Sarah Hughes, The i
‘Does a smooth job of making grueling events believable….that’s one of the best things in Stuart Urban’s script – a sense of how important religion, being part of “a flock” is….a calm morality tale.’ – Radio Times, Pick of the Day.