{"id":170174,"date":"2025-06-09T11:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170174\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T11:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:58:15","slug":"a-heartbreaking-british-drama-with-jason-watkins-is-on-tv-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170174\/","title":{"rendered":"A “heartbreaking” British drama with Jason Watkins is on TV tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “heartbreaking” British drama with The Crown<\/a>‘s Jason Watkins is airing on TV tonight.<\/p>\n

The Children Act is a 2017 film that also stars Years and Years<\/a>‘ Emma Thompson, The Hunger Games<\/a>‘ Stanley Tucci, Dunkirk<\/a>‘s Fionn Whitehead, and Apple Tree Yard<\/a>‘s Ben Chaplin.<\/p>\n

Based on the Ian McEwan novel of the same name, the film follows Fiona, a High Court judge involved in the case of a 17-year-old boy suffering with leukaemia.<\/p>\n

Doctors want him to get a blood transfusion, but his strictly religious parents are forbidding it. Fiona is also struggling with issues at home, as her marriage is falling apart.<\/p>\n

The film will be airing at 11pm on BBC Two tonight and will be available to stream on iPlayer afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"emma<\/p>\n

eOne<\/p>\n

Related: <\/strong>Best streaming services in 2025<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

There are plenty of positive reviews<\/a> of the film, with many praising Thompson’s performance.<\/p>\n

Here’s what some of the reviews said:<\/p>\n

“A heartbreaking lament for loves lost and lives unrealised, a restrained, nuanced movie about nuance and restraint.”<\/p>\n

“Elevated by Thompson\u2019s mesmeric presence and beautifully well-executed performance, making it one of her finest roles to date.”<\/p>\n

\"jason<\/p>\n

eOne<\/p>\n

“In a career that’s spanned every genre, across roles that are silly and serious, The Children Act has to be one of her best \u2014 you could watch this quietly dignified performance for days. So that’s saying something. No one quite breaks your heart like Thompson can.”<\/p>\n

“Sophisticated and challenging, The Children Act continues this trend for filmgoers who would like to flex their intellectual muscles and engage with serious themes.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jason Watkins recently appeared in detective drama The Game<\/a>, which wrapped up on Channel 5 last month.<\/p>\n

The Children Act airs on BBC Two at 11pm tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Digital Spy’s first print magazine is here! Buy <\/strong>British Comedy Legends<\/strong><\/a> in newsagents or <\/strong>online<\/strong><\/a>, now priced at just \u00a33.99.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deals that might interest you\"Shop<\/a>Shop Sky TV, broadband and mobile deals\"Stranger<\/a>Stranger Things Hellfire Club Dice Dangle CharmCredit: Pandora\"Shop<\/a>Shop Claudia Winkleman’s Traitors looksCredit: BBC \/ Studio Lambert\"On\"Richard<\/a>Richard Osman: We Solve MurdersCredit: Viking\"Shop<\/a>Shop PS5 consolesCredit: PlayStation\"Shop<\/a>Shop Alison Hammond’s outfitsCredit: Mark Bourdillon\"Apple<\/a>Apple TV+ 7-day free trialCredit: Apple TV+\"Sign<\/a>Sign up for Disney+Credit: Chuck Zlotnick\"The<\/a>The Street of Lies: An Official Coronation Street Interactive NovelCredit: Octopus Books\"Death<\/a>Death in Paradise: The Puzzle BookCredit: BBC Books\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy<\/strong>, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he’s covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small.<\/p>\n

A big fan of TV<\/a> and movies<\/a> both mainstream and obscure, Joe’s main interest is in video gaming. Although particularly a PlayStation gamer, he plays across Xbox, Nintendo and PC\/Steam Deck, and likes to keep tabs on many games he’s not got the time to play.<\/p>\n

Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I’m a Fish (which you really should do).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “heartbreaking” British drama with The Crown‘s Jason Watkins is airing on TV tonight. The Children Act is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[1380,70947,1331,77,3989,1330,3943,70946,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-170174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-content-type-news","9":"tag-contentid-7ece0634-5c93-4289-995e-7083f7489308","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hasproduct-true","13":"tag-locale-gb","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-shorttitle-heartbreaking-british-drama-on-tv-tonight","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114653293389977264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}