✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
TV

Trigger Point, ITV, episode 1 review ★★★★★

23 Jan 22 – 23 Jan 23, ON ITV

Vicky McClure stars in this latest thriller exec produced by Jed Mercurio, following bomb-disposal officers in their line of duty. Adrian Lester also stars

By Euan Franklin on 22/1/2022

Vicky McClure in Trigger Point, ITV (Photo: ITV)
Vicky McClure in Trigger Point, ITV (Photo: ITV)
Trigger Point, ITV, episode 1 review 4 Trigger Point, ITV, episode 1 review Euan Franklin
2022 has been a brilliant year in television (think of Euphoria and Ozark and The Tourist), and January hasn't even finished yet. For a TV critic, the wealth of choice (never stopping, always expanding) is simultaneously exciting and frustrating – ideal adjectives to describe ITV’s latest thriller Trigger Point, exec-produced by Line of Duty scribe Jed Mercurio and starring DI Fleming herself, Vicky McClure.


Much like any Mercurio-connected project, this six-part drama by debut TV writer Daniel Brierly is the latest weekly event for the British telly-watching public. And it’s an absolute firecracker.



Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester as Wash and Joel. Photo: ITV

McClure takes the lead here, playing the bomb-disposal Explosives Officer (or 'Expo') Lana ‘Wash’ Washington. She coolly arrives at the potential bomb site in the middle of a summer heatwave, with stylish sunglasses and that televisual look of knowing what’s what. She’s mates with her Expo partner Joel (Adrian Lester), with whom she served a tour in Afghanistan.


They park up at a London housing estate, where a bomb has been reported in one of the flats. Wash and Joel get suited – not as heavily protected as Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker, but still wearing helmets bigger than their heads. They’re joyful and cordial before going in: it’s just another day at the office.


The most surprising aspect of Trigger Point is its gripping quietness. It ripples with a kind of augmented realism as the proper procedures are taken: creating an exclusion zone for residents, setting up the officials involved, waiting in vans. And because the bombmakers are only visible through their handiwork, there’s a spectral emptiness in the places where Wash and Joel search. It’s an extremely precise process – one foot wrong, and that foot will be blown up along with the rest of you.


Caution is key and, as the title suggests, anything can be a trigger. Despite the slowness running against the time-sensitive nature of the job, it adds to the Hitchcockian suspense; extending to stimulating cliffhangers before every ad break.


Dramas like these occasionally emphasise the plot so much that characters become afterthoughts. But owing to Brierly’s deliberate deceleration, episode one leaves a decent amount of room for the characters to breathe, joke around, and mention problems at home. Despite the threats posed in this episode, some scenes play like a funny buddy comedy – a very underrated quality in this type of series.


But it’s those riskier moments where Trigger Point and its characters come alive. In an interview with McClure, she describes being given the freedom to improvise certain lines of dialogue – it’s clear which ones, and they immeasurably rocket the rumbling fear and tension in those scenes. McClure is hardly new to these thrilling scenarios, delivering a naturalistic and nerve-shredding performance that rivals her Line of Duty protagonist.


Episode one is a remarkable, surprising, and explosive introduction to the Expo team, and the rest of the series promises to be even better.


Trigger Point airs on Sunday 23 January at 9pm on ITV.




What Trigger Point, ITV, episode 1 review
When 23 Jan 22 – 23 Jan 23, ON ITV
Price £n/a
Website Click here for more information



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 8 - 10 July
Things to do in London this weekend: 8 - 10 July
In the Black Fantastic, Hayward Gallery
In the Black Fantastic, needed and memorable
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London (Photograph: Peter Lewicki)
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London, 2022

Editor's Picks

Taron Egerton in Black Bird, AppleTV+ (Photo: Apple)
What to watch on TV this week
Jason Bateman in Ozark season 4 part 1, Netflix (Photo: Netflix)
Ozark, season 4, part 1 review
Julia Garner in Inventing Anna, Netflix (Photo: Netflix)
Inventing Anna, Netflix review
Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag, BBC
BBC iPlayer box sets: what's on?
Lily James as Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy, Disney+ (Photo: Disney)
Looking forward: the best TV shows of 2022
Zendaya in Euphoria season 2, Sky Atlantic (Photo: Sky)
Euphoria season 2, Sky Atlantic review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Trigger Point

Vicky McClure

Jed Mercurio

Thriller

ITV

TV

2022

You might like

  • Ben Whishaw in This is Going to Hurt, BBC One (Photo: BBC)

    This Is Going to Hurt, BBC One review ★★★★★

  • Marsha Thomason in The Bay series 3, ITV (Photo: ITV)

    The Bay, series 3, ITV review ★★★★★

  • Carlos Acosta

    Yuli – Carlos Acosta's biopic on BBC Two

  • Maxine Peake in Rules of the Game, BBC One (Photo: BBC)

    Rules of the Game, BBC One review ★★★★★

  • Jodie Comer in Killing Eve season 4, BBC One (Photo: BBC)

    Killing Eve, season 4 episode 1, BBC One review ★★★★★

  • Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders season 6, BBC One (Photo: BBC)

    Peaky Blinders, season 6, BBC One, first-look review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×