Love, Lies And Records Episode 1 Review

When I saw the trailer for this programme and heard it was a new Kay mellow drama, I was thrilled. From Playing The Field to Fat Friends to The Syndicate, I've been a big fan of Kay mellor since the 90's so couldn't wait to see what was in store in her new drama Love, Lies and Records.

*Please be aware that this review contains spoilers from the episode.


Something to learn from the first episode of this series is don’t try and break in to your parents house late at night when you don’t have a key, maybe just knock instead. As Liam found out after lead character Kate nearly broke his fingers with a cricket bat after he’d tried to break in as he didn’t want to disturb her. I still say knocking is the better option.

After an unnecessary call to the police the night before, we saw Kate arrive at her work as a registrar with her first client of the day, Simon. Simon wanted to register the birth of his son while his currently ill girlfriend was in a hospice. An emotional and heartbreaking scene followed when Kate married Simon and his girlfriend after Kate went the extra mile to make it happen. After the wedding, Kate proved to be very much a maverick as she exclaimed "rules are there to be broken", when Simon's now wife asked to have his surname on the birth certificate even though the baby was born before they got married. Kate, not wanting to deny a woman her dying wish, agreed. Whether that little act of kindness will see Kate get into trouble remains to be seen but I'm interested to see what else Kate might end up doing that could possibly land her in hot water.

Later that day Kate had good news about being made superintendent registrar. Co-worker Judy was less enthused after claiming Kate had stolen her job. With Judy acting as stand in she clearly thought she was a shoe in for the job. Clearly blaming Kate for her not getting the job, bitter Judy started to blackmail her after claiming she had seen CCTV footage of Kate cheating on partner Rob with handsome colleague Rick. Later Kate thought she had got the better of Judy when she deleted the CCTV footage, unfortunately Judy caught her in the act and informed her that she had made a copy of the footage. I have a feeling this will rumble on right up until the last episode of the series. I just hope Kate manages to get own back on nasty Judy at some point.

One of the other storylines in the episode saw another one of Kate co-workers, sweet natured James, reveal that from next week he would be attending work in women's clothing, which his work colleagues seemed to think was a joke. Realising James was being serious, Kate was the first to applaud, with the rest of James' co- workers following suit. It was a lovely moment to see them supporting James like that. There was another emotional moment at the end of the episode for James when he turned up at Kate's house after his wife had kicked him out and seemingly had nowhere else to go. I think it's great to see the show doing a trans storyline and look forward to seeing where it goes.

After reading some comments on twitter that people thought the episode was lacking and a bit of a slow burner, I was surprised to say the least. The whole point of a first episode of any new series is that they have to spend some time introducing all of the characters and I thought the show did a great job whilst managing to maintain a jam-packed drama filled episode.

Well I for one can't wait for next week's instalment!

If you missed the first episode and want to catch up its on the BBC Iplayer with episode 2 on Tuesday at 9pm on BBC 1.