This talent-packed Birmingham-set series follows three children with a missing mother and their attempts to stay out of care. It's amazing how much silliness they wring out of such a chilling premise

It’s just the usual teenage girl japes: smoking, drinking, teaming up with your best friend to steal a chicken from an irate local farmer. But the motive behind 17-year-old Tiana’s decision to pinch some poultry is about as far from ordinary as you can possibly get. I’m not sure what a normal reason for stealing a chicken might be, but trust me: this is most definitely not it.

We get slightly more clarity on the situation once Tiana brings the chicken home: it’s for her younger brother Tionne, who is prone on the sofa with a duvet over his head. The pair’s nine-year-old sister Tanika wants him to get up and “act normal”, otherwise he’ll end up in a home and she will get adopted, because she’s “young and pretty”. The trio’s mum is missing and Tionne needs the chicken for an experiment he wants to conduct. Soon, we learn that these two things are related in an unimaginably awful way.