Written by Neil McKay and directed by Paul Whittington, it stars Sheridan Smith, Gemma Whelan, Sian Brooke and Siobhan Finneran and was broadcast on BBC One in two one-hour episodes in February 2017.

Originally aired 7 February 2017 In December 2007, Karen Matthews (Gemma Whelan) and Julie Busby (Sheridan Smith) attend a parenting class organised by Kirklees Council.

After a brief conversation, the women part with Karen and Natalie making their way home to the Moorside as Julie wishes them both a nice Christmas.

As Shannon is taken into care, rumours circulate that she was found at the home of Michael Donovan, the uncle of Karen's boyfriend Craig Meehan.

Originally aired 14 February 2017 Freeman and Grummitt tell Karen that Shannon was found under a divan bed in a flat belonging to a man named Michael Donovan in Batley Carr.

Wearing not an ounce of make-up on blanched, puffy cheeks, Smith exuded fiery faith in working-class bonds of loyalty in the face of society’s censure.

Her searing intensity, a charismatic ability to pull focus, is what makes her a compelling presence in musical theatre: she seems to walk in her own spotlight".

[...] But as he did with his drama Appropriate Adult, about Fred and Rosemary West, writer Neil McKay has found another way into a familiar, awful story".

He added, "It's getting boring, plus hard to avoid cliches, when gushing about Smith – her range, her extraordinary humanness, her ability not just to play someone but to inhabit them, to be heroic without being sentimental.

[...] Big shout-outs also must go to Sian Brooke (Sherlock's new secret sis) who plays Natalie Brown, the neighbour who begins to suspect Karen before Julie does.

And to Game of Thrones's Gemma Whelan, whose Karen is not the evil woman the real one was made out to be – more immature, naive, weak, easily manipulated ... and yet she did manage to con a lot of people for a long time, so she can’t be stupid."

[3] Ellie Harrison, reviewing the first episode for Radio Times, noted, "In The Moorside, the key focus is not the abduction, nor the subsequent arrests, but the tireless hunt for Shannon and the seemingly boundless altruism of Julie Bushby.

Harrison found that, "Gemma Whelan is very convincing in her portrayal of Karen as childlike, as someone who is way out of her depth, deluded and who begins to actually revel in the fame of having a missing child.

"[4] Writing in The Spectator, James Walton began by noting the difficulties in finding a positive outlook on the drama's underlying events, adding, "The Moorside [...] is having a go nonetheless.

He recalled that "Karen made a tearful televised appeal for the return of 'my beautiful princess daughter', but ended up serving four years in jail for being an accomplice in Shannon’s kidnapping.

He concluded, "[...] it was the intimate exchanges that really hit home, most notably when Bushby and Brown revealed their histories of sexual abuse to each other, almost by accident.