An unlikely friendship

Poppy Shakespeare, showing March 31st on Channel 4 at 9:00pm

Also recommended...

Desperate Housewives 10:00pm
Dexter 10:35pm
The Bill May 15th - 8:00pm
House May 15th - 9:00pm
Midnight Man May 15th - 9:00pm
Heroes May 15th - 9:00pm
Jericho May 16th - 8:00pm

Based on the best-selling novel by Clare Allan, Poppy Shakespeare is a darkly comic one-off drama exploring life on the psychiatric ward of a North London day hospital from the slightly skewed perspective of its patients.

The drama stars Naomie Harris (White Teeth, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Miami Vice) as Poppy Shakespeare, a new and worryingly sane arrival to the psychiatric ward, who turns up dressed to the nines, insisting she is not mentally ill.

Bafta Award winner Anna Maxwell Martin (Becoming Jane, Bleak House) also stars as "N", a 13-year veteran of the hospital, and self-confessed "dribbler", who severed links with the outside world many years ago and has since made it her sole ambition never to be discharged.

An unlikely friendship blossoms between the pair when "N" is charged with looking after the new arrival. Poppy, desperate to escape the mental health system, persuades "N" to help her get out of the ward. "N" agrees, but the pair quickly find that Poppy is in a catch-22 situation; and proving she is sane is going to be harder than she thought.

Preview courtesy of Channel 4

View more on this programme