Lola Petticrew makes troubled characters worth following without simplifying them. We rate the patience in Furious and the attention to ordinary worries in Trespasses, though even Petticrew cannot make the latter’s central romance wholly persuasive.
Fi1m perspective
In Furious (2026), Catherine takes time to work out what was done to her and who knew. Petticrew makes that process matter in a revenge thriller that begins luridly, giving the series what conscience it has. We were moved by her scenes because that understanding is allowed to come slowly. Petticrew keeps us interested in the person while the thriller gets on with its other business.
The early feature work included a debut in A Bump Along the Way (2019) and a lead in the coming-of-age comedy Dating Amber (2020). The breakthrough came with Say Nothing (2024), before Trespasses (2025) and Furious. That is a shift towards demanding television drama, but it would be a mistake to treat intensity as the whole attraction. The two series we have reviewed are most rewarding when Petticrew has room to make a character’s difficulties particular.
Trespasses gives Petticrew more to do than make Cushla Lavery’s forbidden affair seem worth the trouble. Keogan’s writing takes her ordinary difficulties seriously, and Shadforth keeps her experience central. Petticrew makes her someone we can follow even when her choices frustrate us. There is excellent work from Gillian Anderson too, and some of the series’ deepest feeling belongs to the troubled family around Cushla. The attention paid to those lives makes its four episodes worth the time, even when the lovers are less absorbing.
The reservation matters, because Petticrew and Tom Cullen do have chemistry. Their attraction is credible, yet the writing does not always explain why his Michael Agnew has become indispensable to Cushla. Petticrew keeps Cushla interesting through those weaker stretches, but we still need more reason to believe in this particular attachment.
Furious has a different problem: it is two episodes too long, despite the care of its supporting performances. Catherine’s scenes justify the patience, but we would welcome more parts that give Petticrew everyday difficulties as well as painful discoveries to play. Start with Trespasses for Petticrew and Anderson; the affair need not be the reason to stay.
Biography
Lola Petticrew is an Irish actor born on 26 December 1995 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, graduating in 2017.
Petticrew's film roles include A Bump Along the Way (2019), Dating Amber (2020) and She Said (2022). On television they have appeared in Bloodlands (2021–2022), Say Nothing (2024) as Dolours Price, Trespasses (2025) as Cushla Lavery and Furious (2026) as Catherine. They have received two IFTA awards and a British Academy Television Award nomination.
