Prepare to dive into the pit of family politics with The Inheritance – Channel 5’s latest drama about shocked siblings who learn that their late father left them out of his will.
With questions over their father’s mysterious death and why he’s left his wealth to a woman they’ve never met, it’s not long before Daniel, Sian and Chloe Watson turn on each other in their quest for answers.
“At the end of the show, you’ll look at your siblings and say, ‘How do I know you’re not like that?’” says star Robert James-Collier. He jokes: “When I die, I’m going to p**s all my money up the wall because all it does is lead to arguments and death. So if I get rid of it, it’s not a problem!”
Robert, who plays financially-strapped chef Daniel, is joined in the cast by The Syndicate’s Gaynor Faye and The Split’s Jemima Rooper who play his on-screen sisters, single Sian and family woman Chloe. All three are living their adult lives in Yorkshire and occasionally visiting their widower dad Dennis ( Larry Lamb ) when he dies unexpectedly.
Sitting down for the will-reading, the three siblings discover that their father has left them with nothing and that a random woman – played by Samantha Bond – is inheriting the house they grew up in.
“There are a lot of twists and turns I’ve got to say – I was disorientated and discombobulated and I was in it!” Robert admits.
Gaynor adds: “It’s really hard to keep an audience from guessing what’s going to happen but I think the show does a really good job of keeping it twisting and turning. Suspicion is on every one of the family at some point.”
The three siblings start to dig into their father’s life and soon uncover secrets about Dennis – and themselves, Jemima teases. “My character is seemingly in the most stable relationship and has two kids but I think the mask starts to fall off,” she says. “The more layers they uncover, they increasingly find that they’re in more and more danger.”
Although the family are “at each other’s throats” throughout the series, the three stars reveal that they bonded immediately on set despite meeting for the first time. “It was very easy – we all just gelled very quickly,” Jemima says.
And for Robert, there was a mini Downton Abbey reunion with Samantha after the pair last played footman Thomas and Lady Rosamund Painswick in the period drama sequel A New Era. “It was lovely to work with Sam again – she’s a legend,” he says, adding that the 61-year-old was a hit with “men of a certain age” in Kilkenny, where they filmed.
“She was a major celebrity in Kilkenny,” Jemima reveals. “Wherever she went, there were people getting very excited. She’s utterly brilliant on and off camera – her character comes across very cold and difficult, but she’s the opposite of that, which is obviously much nicer to work with.
Despite filming tense scenes for the family drama, the cast had a whale of a time on set thanks to their Irish crew. “They were hilarious, we laughed all day,” Robert reveals. “When you’re doing something as traumatic as The Inheritance, you need that in the breaks.”
In fact, Gaynor and Robert took the opportunity to swap soap stories as both have stints on Coronation Street under their belts. “We were enlightening people with our tales from Corrie,” Gaynor – who played Judy Mallett in the 90s – says. “Obviously Rob [who played Liam Connor from 2006 until 2008] and I didn’t work together, I was quite a long time before him.
“I loved my time on Corrie, it was my teething time on TV. It was in the glory days with Bet Lynch (Judie Goodyear) and Sarah Lancashire and Betty Driver. It was iconic.”
The cast were even given the chance to improvise when filming flashback scenes of birthdays and Christmases, all of which were shot on a phone. “It was all home video stuff – we could be very free and do a lot of ad-libbing,” Gaynor says, with Robert adding: “I was holding the phone for those scenes so if the cinematography is brilliant, it’s because of yours truly!”
While the Watson siblings love to whip out their phone cameras, their real-life counterparts aren’t so keen on social media. “I just stay away from it all – I’ve got no interest. I like to be in the moment. I’m a Luddite,” Robert says, as Jemima adds: “Every time I get the camera out to record anything my kids are doing, I’ve always missed the moment anyway!”
Thanks to the nostalgic camcorder scenes, the cast think that family does “win out in the end” of The Inheritance.
“I think the audience will get the feel that blood is thicker than water. Families – we break up, we tear apart – but actually we come back together,” Gaynor says.
“The inevitability of death and wills is something that we’re all going to go through and it really does mess up families,” Robert says. “A lot of surprises come out of the woodwork and therein lies great drama. You see the best and worst qualities of human nature when wills are announced.”
The Inheritance airs on Monday 4th September at 9pm on Channel 5
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