A bath for your brain: why French drama Torn is perfect pandemic TV

I was unmoved by the Provencal thriller when I first saw it, but it landed on All4 at a time when absurd escapism is needed

It took me a while to warm to Walter Presents/All 4's French drama Torn. I first saw it in a cinema a couple of years ago, when I was on the jury for the French television festival Series Mania.

Back then, its charms were not immediately apparent. It was - is - about a woman cheating on her husband with a chef in Provence; it felt as if the story was secondary to all the nice things on display. The cast members were all attractive and the characters lived in houses so beautiful that it made me angry. That wasn't a drama," sniffed one of the other jurors as we filed out of the screening. That was a tourism advert."