The Holiday

A group of old uni friends meet up for a holiday in Malta, secrets and lies ruin the break.

First off, it looks freezing, the poor actors do their best to pretend as though it's warm, it looks like Burnley in February.

Dire, I think that's a fair word to describe this painful series. Imagine a soap opera that airs in the middle of the night, that nobody watches, that's what you have here, shockingly bad melodrama.

You spend three hours waiting for something to happen, other than awful parenting, people marching off, and interrupted conversations.

What a waste of the wonderful Aidan McArdle, I can't believe that someone of his class took a role like this. The acting ranges from average to decent.

Dave yourself the hassle, read old editions of The Yellow pages, I assure you that'd be more entertaining.

Painful, 3/10.

Some old college friends share a holiday villa with their families. They are all utterly vile to each other and then go about a lot of improbable nonsense. Be certain that you will question the authenticity of just about every line and every screenplay.

Recipe: Take 8 miserable, unlikeable, flawed adults.

Add a couple of stroppy teenagers and some incredibly annoying younger children.

Don't forget the staple of all current dramas - secretive mobile phone activity.

And finally put them in a villa in what seems to be a particularly cold and windy Malta.

Result: A flat and relentlessly boring story, the type of which Channel 5 excel at.

Four episodes of complete boredom. Characters are boring, acting not much better, To show this over 4 consecutive nights is dreadful. One full episode could have told the story. But, even that would have still been unbearable.

It's an ok show, nothing special but definitely not fantastic either. The main problem is as ever with current shows, text messages. Not everyone watches on a tablet or phone and unless you happen to have binoculars next to your sofa don't expect to see what's been written. Just hope it's not relevant to the storyline!