ITV’s Adultery erupts as a six-part scorcher on October 6, 2025—Danny Brocklehurst’s blistering brainchild that’s already primed to pummel The Affair‘s angst and out-twist Harlan Coben’s Netflix nukes like Fool Me Once (85 million views) and The Stranger.
The BAFTA-winning scribe (Brassic, Stay Close, Ten Pound Poms) crafts a “naturally authentic” nerve-shredder about two ordinary Manchester families imploding under obsession’s weight: Dominic Cooper as Tom, a married dad whose “all-consuming” office flirtation with Beth (Romola Garai, Olivier darling from The Years) spirals into a “passionate and intense love affair” that uproots lives like a Category 5 cyclone. “It’s a rollercoaster of passion, parenthood, and peril,” Brocklehurst teases to Radio Times, blending class clashes, grief’s grip, and social media’s savage spotlight into a “messy” maelstrom that probes “how love and sex lift us to the highest highs and lowest lows.” With a 92% pre-premiere buzz on IMDb and 1.5 million X posts hyping it as “Britain’s answer to Coben’s chaos,” this Poison Pen Studios debut (Ben Stephenson’s transatlantic titan) drops on ITV1/ITVX, poised to poach Fool Me Once‘s faithful and forge a fresh frenzy.
The affair’s anatomy? A venomous vortex: Tom and Beth’s “bristling with passion” plunge—stolen glances in boardrooms blooming into backseat bonfires—collides with marital minefields, as Tom’s wife (Shelley Conn, Heartstopper‘s steady hand) and Beth’s husband (Matthew Goode, The Crown‘s chilling charm) unravel in real-time rage. “It’s no glossy soap—raw, twist-laden, gasping,” The Guardian gushes in early screenings, with Brocklehurst’s “deft” dialogue dissecting digital daggers (Instagram DMs that detonate dinners) and class chasms that choke the cheat. Directors Will Sinclair (Vera, eps 1-3) and Daniel O’Hara (Stay Close, eps 4-6) wield Manchester’s moody mills and manicured suburbs like a scalpel, a score that simmers like suppressed screams. Co-stars sear: Conn’s wounded wife a whirlwind of wit and wrath, Goode’s betrayed beau a brooding bomb, plus Bridgerton‘s Bessie Carter as a sassy sibling stirring scandal, Grantchester‘s Al Weaver as a suspicious shrink, and Vigil‘s Conor McIntyre as a corporate cobra coiling the catastrophe.
Plot propulsion? Paranoia on a precipice: What kicks off as “highest highs” of hotel hideaways cascades into “lowest lows”—leaked nudes nuking jobs, grief’s ghost (a family funeral fueling forbidden fire) fracturing facades, twists that tangle like Coben’s knots (a mid-season “who’s watching?” whodunit that flips fidelity forever). Digital Spy dubs it “addictive as adultery itself,” Hello! hails the “provocative” probe of “social media’s scandalous side.” Brocklehurst’s blueprint? “Passion’s privilege—I’ve wanted this for years,” he confesses, his Coben collabs (Missing You looms on Prime) infusing infidelity with infernal intrigue. Filmed February-July 2025 in Manchester’s mists, it’s ITV’s “love story on steroids,” per Polly Hill, executive producing alongside Stephenson’s “high-caliber” cast coup.
Fans? Frenzied: #AdulteryITV surges with 2.8 million posts, “Coben in the Cotswolds—can’t wait!” clashing with “Messier than my ex—sign me up!” Skeptics sniff “soapy sleaze,” but the 1-in-3 affair-to-anguish ratio hooks, per early metrics outgunning Doctor Foster‘s finale. This isn’t rom-dram drivel; it’s a relational reckoning, Adultery‘s unflinching unflinch a reminder that passion’s precipice plummets fast. Tom’s tango? Toxic. Beth’s blaze? Bedeviling. October 6? Not a premiere—a powder keg. Binge it; the betrayals blister, the highs hurl, the lows lacerate. Brocklehurst’s Britain? No Coben clone—it’s crueler, closer, catastrophically captivating. Trust us: This obsession? Overnight.
