Brand new ITV drama Until I Kill You has promised viewers plenty of thrills – but fans weren’t expecting the thrill they got just minutes into the first episode.
The four-part series, which premiered on Sunday night, November 3, stars Anna Maxwell-Martin, Amanda Wilkin, and Sallie Harmsen.
It follows the true story of Delia Balmer (played by Anna), an agency nurse, who once met a mysterious man named John Sweeney and entered a dangerous romance with him.
Set in the 1990s, the series then shows how Delia is left in a fight for her safety after John’s sinister intentions and true nature are gradually revealed to her.
But it’s the actor playing John Sweeney who has caught viewers’ attentions on Sunday night, with British TV legend Shaun Evans popping up to catch everyone off guard.
@AlsWifeJacky said on X: ‘I’m going to resist the urge to binge-watch this. Brilliant acting by Anna Maxwell-Martin & Shaun Evans, chilling to think that this is a true story. There are women who are going through this nightmare every day.’
Meanwhile, @Firefly070 commented: ‘Shaun Evans is a terrific actor…. Anna Maxwell Martin is brilliant in this too.’
@Irimtated was intrigued by Shaun’s performance: ‘Oh, is Shaun Evans our creepy guy here? And in his original Scouse accent? Bring it.’
Also watching on, @PoppyBlew said, ‘Shaun Evans? That’ll do for me,’ while @WhitePele10 simply said, ‘You had me at Shaun Evans.’
Shaun, 44, has appeared in several ITV, BBC and Channel 4 dramas down the years, including Endeavour, which was a prequel to the long-running Inspector Morse series.
He made his big break in TV as a star of drama series Teachers, in which he played series regular John Paul Keating for 10 episodes back in 2002.
Shaun then moved over to the BBC, where he starred in The Virgin Queen, Ashes to Ashes, Silk, and the police procedural series Vigil, which began in 2021.
He’s also going to be starring in the newly commissioned ITV espionage series Betrayal, which is described as a ‘an emotionally intelligent, thrilling and darkly funny thriller’.
Until I Kill You is based on memoirs of the same name, written by Delia Balmer, who grew up in Canada and moved to London to become a full-time nurse.
In 1991, she met John Sweeney in a Camden pub, and the pair began a relationship. However, John would soon be distant (both figuratively and literally) for long stretches and Delia’s family expressed their dislike of him.
Over their three-year relationship, John began to display controlling and abusive behaviours, criticising Delia’s appearance and making crude remarks about how she spent her free time.
The memoir then reveals that John’s behaviour escalated and became violent – he held her at gunpoint and knifepoint on more than one occasion, and kept her locked in her apartment as a prisoner.
In December 1994, she came home to find him waiting for her with an axe and a rusty knife – he attacked her, cutting off her left pinky finger and leaving her badly scarred on her torso and legs.
By the time the police arrived, John was on the run and would evade capture for another seven years. He was eventually caught and convicted not just for his attacks on Delia, but for the murders of two other women as well.
Delia published Until I Kill You through Penguin Books in November 2024, while John is serving multiple life sentences behind bars.
Watch Until I Kill You on ITVX.
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