The Guest

Guest To Kill

The Guest 
BBC Four Episodes
September 2025

Warning: Mild spoilers.

The Guest is a four episode mini series put out by the BBC and, truth be told, it’s not the kind of show I would usually watch. However, my parents had it on in the background while I was doing something for half an hour and I made a note of it and came back to it a few days later to start it off from scratch on the BBC iPlayer. Because I found myself drawn to it, not so much by the story as I was by the acting of the two female leads, who were really giving some subtle and interesting nuances to their characters. 

These were Gabrielle Creevy as the down on her luck, poverty stricken Ria, who is not making enough money out of being a cleaner to keep herself and her boyfriend in food and, her new benefactor, the rich and powerful Fran, played by the great Eve Myles (who I best remember from Doctor Who spin off Torchwood).

Fran throws large amounts of cash in Ria’s direction and has her come to work in her… well it’s a bit of a mansion house with a neighbouring guest house. Her husband is away most of the time, seeing to his part of their company business overseas and, Fran takes to Ria and, cautiously, Ria also is somewhat seduced by Fran’s lifestyle. But there’s always a catch and as she starts to explore the fate of the previous cleaner, the contents of the ‘forbidden, locked room’ and starts paying attention to what business Fran’s public facing job is fronting (especially when she’s promoted to being her PA), things take on a sinister turn.

Not least of which is when Ria accidentally murders, in self defence, a suitor who at first seems to be just someone she met on a dating app but, it’s not too long when, despite her investigations and text messages from his phone after he’s very much deceased, she realises he also has a link to whatever’s going on at the house that Fran and her husband Simon built.

The story did not, I have to say, go where I wanted it to go… I was expecting more of a very classic horror element to creep into this by the third episode (I thought they were just being really clever about things, okay?) but it’s more than made up for in the chemistry between Fran and Ria. These are not two dimensional characters and they both carry hidden secrets. Creevy plays it very understated but less is definitely more and you can see her working things out behind her eyes as she progresses further down the rabbit hole. And as for Eve Myles performance as Fran… it’s probably the best I’ve seen her. You can see how her character has let herself become something of a monster over the years but there are also some heart rending scenes where you realise just how she’s gravitated to this and Miles take on the role is so pinpoint on the more, turn on a dime, slightly unstable parts of her personality that... well, like I said, best performance I’ve seen her do. Both actresses rely on the physicality of their expressions and the way they express and change their attitude from minute to minute... well, it’s just a pleasure to watch. 

And I think that’s me done with this one, actually. Like I said, The Guest is not my normal go to for TV entertainment but serendipity shone and I stumbled on a really interesting piece of work here. I think the story could have been a little more complex or, perhaps, a little more explored as there are some very short hand emotional beats on some of the supporting characters (perhaps another episode would have been beneficial) but, yeah, this one has some breathtaking acting performances and I will certainly try to put this one onto people’s radar, I think.