TV review: Best Interests is a gruelling drama — with Sharon Horgan and Cork actress Alison Oliver

This is about the parents of a seriously ill child — the parents who know their way around the ward, the parents who have obviously spent too many hours here already

Best Interests with Andrew (Michael Sheen) and Nicci (Sharon Horgan). Picture: Chapter One Pictures / Kevin Baker

Anyone who has been in hospital with their child for a minor emergency will have seen the other parents. The ones with the seriously ill child, who know their way around the ward, they’ve obviously spent too many hours here already. You wonder about their lives and thank whatever God you believe in that it isn’t you.

Best Interests (BBC One and BBC iPlayer) lifts the veil on these lives. It’s a gruelling, emotion grinder of a drama, with Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen playing Nicci and Andrew, parents to Marnie, who was born with a form of muscular dystrophy that doctors believe will shorten her life considerably.