“Have you seen the new Netflix show?” A question that is synonymous with getting on board with the latest viewing trend. That’s how I wound up watching The Stranger. With it being on Netflix, I hoped for something edgier than mainstream telly. Something up there with other thrillers on the streaming service.

That isn’t what I got.

Welcome to ITV Sunday night’s from the nineties, replacing the best of those moments (Coltrane) with the camp and absurd.

Richard Armitage plays Adam Price. A guy who’s as inviting as an eye-poking convention. He’s tipped off that his wife, Corrine — ramped up to high levels of annoying by Dervla Kirwan — is a bit of a liar. Adam goes digging and finds out she is.

Somehow, Jennifer Saunders finds herself in the show. After years of telling jokes, she ends up inside one. She’s one of a handful here whose talent exceeds the script. Siobhan Finneran plays the detective who adds levity to proceedings. She’s not the sort of cop that cares for crime scenes. She stands all over the spilt blood from a llama’s head.

That takes place under the watchful eye of Robert Peel’s statue in Bury town centre. It’s fitting the man that made policing witnessed the crime of this series firsthand. Being in Bury, a place Danny Simms has made me frequent, could explain why everyone involved in this project is so out of kilter.

It’s out of intrigue and a love of car crash telly it manages to get a rating of:

5/10