The Deceived: new drama from Derry Girls writer Lisa McGee was filmed in Northern Ireland

The Deceived was created and written by Lisa McGee along with her husband – the actor Tobias Beer.

The four-part drama is the first project the pair have written together.

Lisa said: “We talked about working on something together for a long time, but it took a while to find the right project.”

Tobias commented: “Our system with this and other stuff we have for the future tends to be that we will talk very loosely about an idea early on – often over drinks so it doesn’t feel like work.

“Then we will do a plan for the structure and plot very rough scenes, after which we’ll carve them up and write separately. Then we come together and swap around, noting each other’s and editing.

“The main thing is, because we spend our lives together, to stave off a divorce we don’t tend to work together – so we never really do stuff at the same time apart from at the earliest and latest stages.”

The Deceived is described as a sinister narrative of lust, manipulation and betrayal in which Ophelia Marsh played by Emily Reid falls desperately in love with her married lecturer played Emmett J Scanlan of Peaky Blinders fame, seeing in him all the answers to her needs.

When their affair is interrupted by a shocking and tragic death, Ophelia finds herself trapped in a world where she can no longer trust her own mind.

The drama is produced by New Pictures, the production house behind The Missing and Catherine The Great.

Explaining the departure from the humour of Derry Girls Lisa said: “I was a playwright then started writing television drama and sort of side stepped into comedy which is now what I’m most known for.

“For me it’s just about absolutely loving the project – writing something you’d like to watch. You never know if it’s going to be successful. You just pray some people watch it and enjoy it.

“And I discovered writing The Deceived that there were similarities with Derry Girls, the challenge of creating an authentic world, constructing a scare isn’t a million miles away from constructing a joke – both require the viewer to have a physical reaction. I’ve always enjoyed working in different genres – you learn a lot from it.”

Tobias said: “On a personal note, the challenge of writing together presented more prosaic difficulties. Lisa gave birth to our second son more or less on the first day of filming. I was away a great deal, and we did our best to explain to him after he was born, but he was strangely unsympathetic to the demands of making television drama.”