Down Cemetery Road

“Down Cemetery Road is great stuff. There is not a wasted moment, not a wasted word. Everything is there for a reason. The plot thickens at pace and the twists are worth waiting for. It smooths out the book’s few technical problems and infelicities nicely – bringing Zoë to the fore much earlier, for example – and retains all the dry humour and acuity for which fans of Slow Horses will surely have been hoping.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“This is a show that treads a path through spies, lives and unravelling mysteries in such a way as to keep you hooked. Conspiracies grow deeper and plots thicken on a low heat but are punctuated by genuine shocks. And every step of the way we’re reminded of life’s mundanities — the effort of personal grooming, a hand accidentally dunked in a takeaway container and the dog-eared pages of our protagonists’ lives. While Ruth Wilson’s Sarah may be the way you’re drawn into this adventure, Emma Thompson’s delightfully acerbic Zoë Boehm is the reason to stay.”
Tim Glanfield, The Times

“Down Cemetery Road is about as hilarious as a series splattered with sudden violence and a child abduction at its centre could ever be. Morweena Banks is a comedy writer who once did sketch comedy with Emma Thompson and is also the voice of Mummy Pig in Peppa Pig. Take that CV into account and you can see how she has crafted Down Cemetery Road as an absurdist commentary on the way stupid men cause problems and brilliant women end up having to solve them.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“In its favour is that unlike so many British crime dramas, Down Cemetery Road is remarkably devoid of exposition. Instead, it slowly sets up the nuanced characters and their interlinked lives, where tension simmers behind the middle-class facade. I expect the lack of clarity will lead some to switch off, but for those who don’t, the premiere builds enough excitement – and ends on an unexpected and gripping cliffhanger – to make it worth sticking with. Given the star power behind it, I know I will be.”
Isobel Lewis, The i

“You could argue there’s something perversely anachronistic about a conspiracy thriller in 2025, when the global climate already feels like some kind of far-fetched nightmare. But be that as it may, I still found myself bingeing the whole lot, in thrall to the cast chemistry and a plot that has more twists than a politician’s expenses claim. Kudos to Banks, who has adapted Herron’s novel into something genuinely labyrinthine without it becoming incomprehensible. Slow Horses it may not be, but Down Cemetery Road is its own beast: faster, funnier and unrelenting.”
Patrick Smith, The Independent