REVIEW: New series of In the Club ‘delivers’ plenty of drama in just one hour

Last night saw the return of the BBC’s popular female ensemble series In The Club.

In series one, the drama revolved around the individual lives and relationships of a group of six expectant women who forged close friendships in a parent craft class. This first episode of the new season picked up 10 months after the births of the babies, and the action came faster than Roanna (Hermione Norris) could whip a seeping, soiled nappy off a crying baby. 

A newborn baby was found abandoned in the toilet cubicle of the maternity clinic which Jasmin (Taj Atwal) was attending. In her second pregnancy, Jasmin is now expecting twins. Rosie (Hannah Midgley), the teenage mum, is also expecting her second baby.  The identity of the mother of the abandoned baby will undoubtedly be linked to one of our main characters, but we will have to wait for the truth to be revealed.

In an event-filled show such as this, it was not a surprise that Jasmin’s pregnancy was not a straightforward one when she was told that she would lose one of her babies to twin–to-twin-transfusion syndrome (TTTS), and had to consider undergoing a risky procedure to put it right. There’s no surer way to create family strife than throwing an interfering mother-in-law into the mix. Fortunately, her trusty mates were able to rush over to provide support and defuse the tension at home.

High drama ensued when young Rosie was trapped in a lift and had to give birth to her second baby in it.

There was also much upset when Kim found out that her ex-lover Susie had moved on, and was living with her new lover in their old home. In series one, Kim fell in love with their sperm donor, Neil, and is now partnered with him. Nappies were not the only messy things in this show, that’s for sure!

Writer Kay Mellor has managed to cram on overload of drama in this one hour premiere episode, and not all the women have had their stories told yet. Although melodramatic at times, we are nevertheless drawn in, and viewers need not be expectant mothers to be sucked into the tangled domestic tales of the six families as they grapple with babies and their relationships with one another.

It was a welcome return for fans of the show to follow on after the births, and Series Two will no doubt prove to be as popular as the first.

In the Club continues next Tuesday at 9pm on BBC One.

Catch up on Episode 1 and the story so far on BBC iPlayer.