Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.For three years Pete and Maddie have loved, nurtured and moulded their infant boy Theo, unaware that he is not their biological son. They are unaware that the child Maddie actually gave birth to is being raised just a few miles away by another unsuspecting husband and wife who are, in fact, Theo’s genetic parents. A devastating, belatedly-discovered hospital clerical error is at the centre of Playing Nice, a new four-part ITV drama that raises existential questions and serious ethical quandaries before proceeding largely to ignore them.For much of the first episode it seems as though the child-swap premise — improbable yet chillingly conceivable — might lead to a novel, challenging exploration of paternal instincts and familial bonds. Yet the revelation that brings these two couples together instead only signals the start of a formulaic, facile melodrama. Given that this is an adaptation of a pulpy bestseller, it might have been misguided to expect anything more searching, but the talent involved makes it disappointing.James Norton and Niamh Algar star as Cornwall-based full-time dad Pete and chef Maddie, whose bliss is interrupted by a call from the hospital and a visit from Theo’s biological father, Miles. Played with smiling malice by James McArdle, Miles is oddly unfazed by the delicacy of the situation and begins bulldozing his way into Theo’s life. His wife, Lucy (Jessica Brown Findlay), meanwhile seems adamant to maintain a distance between son David and his “real” parents. An initial kinship soon gives way to tension exacerbated by disparities in status between the families that Miles later exploits in his scheme to sue for full custody. What follows is an increasingly implausible if effectively queasy thriller shaped more by one man’s sociopathy than broader sociological insight. While Miles’s villainy is much too overt, he is also the only character given any discernible identity. Pete shows an infuriating lack of common sense and guile while the two mothers remain almost peripheral figures — though Algar’s Maddie is granted some depth through allusions to post-partum depression.Ultimately, however, the show has so little to say about the complexities of its central premise that you wonder if it would’ve been materially different if it had revolved around a dry cleaning mix-up instead.★★☆☆☆New episodes on ITV1 on January 12 and 13 at 9pm. Streaming in full on ITVX
