The first question asked of Fellowes’ whodunit-styled drama is one of surprise. Will it? Fellowes won an Oscar for Gosford Park, his delightful script shredding the fabric of English class structure. In some regards he does the same again, albeit in a modern frame and without a cast full of Britain’s Actors Guild. Adapting a 1951 novel, he takes a knife to social divisiveness, culpability, adultery, hypocrisy, responsibility and every other large theme he can lay his hands on.

There’s potential for the upper crust, Home County story to crumble into the bastard child of Inspector Morse and Cluedo. But Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett are better than that. So too is Fellowes who, in directing his own script, suffuses the layered plot with his formidable wit and strong eye for the camera.

At the heart of Separate Lies is the issue of justice. Is it an absolute, or a matter of perspective? This is a major challenge for an elevated lawyer and husband of a young wife who, bored with her marriage, takes up with a local cad. Tragedy strikes, lies are told, the lawyer and, poignantly, their cleaning lady are reeled into the deception. Racism gets an airing when an inspector calls. He’s black and locally born, yet treated like an outsider. It’s here that the production echoes Priestley’s celebrated work as everyone is forced to confront their own island life. Fellowes packs a lot into a very tight 86 minutes, dropping exposition in favour of characters and their actors. Sifting for integrity here is forensic work at its best, and no one lets us down.

// COLIN FRASER