Cleaning Up

Not the worst series I've ever watched but completely ruined for me by the morally bankrupt, hateful protagonist played by Sheridan Smith (In fairness - actually played very well).

The combination of the complete lack of any sort of redeeming story arc fornthe main character & seemingly endless loyalty / forgiveness by her friends & family made me want to kick a hole through my telly.

Also whoever wrote the final act needs to go to a maths class - unless we're expected to believe that her best friend is willing to just write off substantial sums of money to help her gambling addict friend pay off her debt with the vague hope of a potential future pay off from a quite frankly idiotic business / scam.

Great acting but as the series goes on it becomes more implausible.

To the reviewer highlighting a continuity error, suggesting the girl's black eye changes eye from one scene to the next, I say watch again, the first shot was her looking in the mirror lol. Remained her left eye throughout.

A highly entertaining, if improbable, 6-part drama on ITV, starring Sheridan Smith as a recently separated single parent, struggling to bring up her two daughters on her low income as an office cleaner in the financial centre of London, as well as managing her growing addiction to gambling, be it lottery scratch-cards, on-line gaming or just going to the local casino to play roulette. Opportunity comes knocking for her however as she becomes aware that an employee at a city stockbroker where she cleans after-hours, who seems to work late and alone every night, is in fact part of a syndicate involved in insider-dealing. With her two work-colleague friends, she sets up a listening device in the dealer's office and uses the information to play the market for the three of them to benefit financially from investing in the hot tips picked up.

The plot thickens however when the threesome's gravy train gets derailed after the crooked dealer is suspended on suspicion of malpractice and Smith decides to move on up by swotting up on the markets and stepping into the offending dealer's shoes as his replacement in the scam. While the idea of a lowly office cleaner carrying off such a caper is somewhat far fetched, it's written and played so well that you go along with the unlikely premise, rooting for Smith and her buddies all the way, especially at the numerous nail-biting moments when it seems her well-laid plans are about to unravel.

There are various background sub-plots including Smith's on-off relationship with her ex-husband, who still cares for her to some degree and is concerned about her gambling addiction, likewise her two daughters, the older one in her mid teens who tries to encourage her mum to attend Gambler's Anonymous classes, the younger infant one driven to petty theft to help her struggling mum, the vulture-like loan-shark constantly badgering Smith for repayment and last but not least the geeky young entrepreneur-inventor she takes in as a lodger whose ability to make home-made listening devices is crucial to the plot.

Sure, a lot of the plot-links are as unlikely as my winning the lottery next week and I'm not sure about the dubious morality of the ending where it seems Smith and her chums are about to continue along similar lines in their criminal ways but with a well-chosen cast all responding to the superior material and smart, non-flashy direction, this was enjoyable contemporary drama which thoroughly entertained my wife and I over its six-week run.

I watched the whole series but there's some severe flaws in the show's writing and concept-creation. Like how there is very little CCTV reference despite it being there in that office environment.

That ID checks are properly lapse. That would not happen. The fact that a relatively non-technical person got a usb stick and managed to copy x amount of information and print it on the printers which have a READ HISTORY will not actually happen. DNA is on the USB stick. Jeez!

The IT traders' desks aren't correct. Not enough screens/data. The boss with a heavy accent with a cleaning company not making enough money in CW is incorrect when contractors already run the floors and they are stable operations.

I don't understand how she opened a card in her daughters' names and her ex was able to check the information when it was protected in hers. Not possible.

I don't get how the £14k debt make sense and he kept coming over her house and the school. Like a pro would not waste that amount of time and he would be with other people.

The acting was ok and it was ok popcorn drama with a nice ending but it just so unrealistic. So much poetic license with omitting actual integritiy on trading life. Please ask traders for consultancy roles before writing these scripts. It costs £50 to register a new business not £2,000. I'm a bit confused as how the three of them thought they could cold-call trading companies who already have contracted cleaning firms installed.

Oh well. 4/10.