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Angela Black
Rating: 
Tom Parker: Inside My Head
Rating: 
Where will it end? The standard of living is spiralling on our TVs as every new domestic drama features ever more palatial homes.
If you thought Anna Maxwell Martin's house was swanky on Hollington Drive, with its bi-fold doors and colossal kitchen, Joanne Froggatt goes several degrees grander in Angela Black (ITV).
One immense glass wall, the size of an iMax cinema screen, frames her lounge. The wooden floor is broad enough for a ballroom. When she has guests over, they're dotted on sofas drifting like scattered lifeboats. The place even appears to have a wine cellar.
When Angela fancies a bottle of plonk, she specifies Rioja — and her husband Olivier (Michiel Huisman) offers a choice of vineyards.
Joanne Froggatt as Angela Black in the tense ITV drama
It's enough to give some viewers an inferiority complex. My wine cellar is a half-empty box of M&S white at the back of the fridge.
What's puzzling is that, with all that wealth, Angela works at the local kennels.
It might make sense if she was surrounded by friends there, but the other staff barely speak to her — she just gets dirty looks.
Even the dogs hate her. One husky called Jackie almost takes her arm off after she removes its muzzle. That's the problem with Angela Black, a tense domestic drama about violent abuse. Bits of it don't add up.
Joanne makes a convincing abused wife. She ought to — she's played the role often enough, in ITV shows from Liar to Downton Abbey.
