Return, The (ITV1 2003, Julie Walters, Neil Dudgeon)

Julie Walters stars as a lifer on parole after serving 10 years for the murder of her husband in The Return, a psychological drama from the makers of The Cry and Tipping The Velvet.

Julie plays Lizzie Hunt, jailed for the violent killing of her doctor husband David in a drunken rage – an event she can’t even remember. Free at last, she leaves prison to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

All Lizzie wants to do is to make peace with her teenage son Jimmy (Glen Barry). But if she tries to contact him, or drink alcohol, her licence will be revoked and she will be back behind bars. As memories of the killing come back at last, she starts to break all the rules and after examining the evidence file against her she begins to doubt if it was really her that killed him.

Filmed in and around Dublin, The Return also stars Neil Dudgeon as Lizzie’s former lover Matt, with Pauline McLynn and Ger Ryan.

production details
UK / ITV-1 – Sally Head – Octagon Films / 1×100 minute episode / Broadcast 30 December 2003

Writer: Kate O’Riordan / Producer: Keith Thompson / Director: Dermot Boyd

cast
JULIE WALTERS as Lizzie Hunt
NEIL DUDGEON as Matt Dempsey
GER RYAN as Maggie Lynch
GLEN BARRY as Jimmy Hunt
ALAN BARRY as Dr Brian Cullen
EILEEN COLGAN as Fee Cullen
PAULINE MCLYNN as Laura Dunmore
NICK DUNNING as Tony Hunt