Natalie's life begins to disintegrate after her apparently benign scam proves to have dreadful consequences in the conclusion to Deborah Moggach 's two-part drama.
Further cast on Easter Day
DRAMA Final Demand 9.10pm BBC1
Few TV dramas would make serial killing a sub-plot, and a very small one at that, but Final Demand, which concludes tonight, dwells hardly at all on a murderer roaming around Bristol slaughtering women. No, it's more interested in being a savage indictment of call centres. Yes, these are evil to writer Deborah Moggach. Maybe she's been put on hold to the tinny strains of Vivaldi's Four Seasons played on a xylophone just once too often.
Tonight, Natalie Taylor (Tamzin Outhwaite), who married a man for his surname so she could alter customers' cheques and fiddle her employers, is made aware of the full consequences of what she thought was a victimless crime.
She also has to face the wrath of a father who blames her for his daughter's death. He's bitter and inconsolable and played by Liam Cunningham, so Final Demand has compensations for its unbelievability and some cringe-making dialogue - Natalie's pillow talk, for instance, which sounds like a very well brought-up lady's idea of talking dirty.
Of course, these are great roles for Tamzin Outhwaite (who's on her way to becoming the new Amanda Burton) and Simon Pegg, as her poor sap of a husband, who gets to show he's not just that funny bloke from Spaced. (Alison Graham)
Simon Pegg, Face of the Week: page 67
Tamzin Outhwaite's TV CV: page 146