# Playing Nice (2025)

> Two couples discover their toddlers were switched at birth and must choose between the sons they have raised and their biological children.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/158832

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama
- Created by: Grace Ofori-Attah
- Network: ITV1
- Cast: James Norton, Niamh Algar, James McArdle, Jessica Brown Findlay, Lucy Phelps, Theo Ogundipe, Philippe Spall, Miriam Lucia
- TMDB rating: 7.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30135004/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: melancholic, tense, emotionally raw, restrained

## Synopsis

Playing Nice (2025) is a British four-episode limited series created by Grace Ofori-Attah for ITV1, adapted from a novel. Pete Riley (James Norton) and Maddie Wilson (Niamh Algar) and Miles Lambert (James McArdle) with Lucy Lambert (Jessica Brown Findlay) find that their toddlers were switched at birth in a hospital mix-up. Each couple must decide whether to keep the sons they have raised and loved or reclaim the biological child they never knew. The engine of the story is a painful, escalating custody dispute in which lawyers, social workers and family friends push each household toward a decision that cannot be undone. Each of the four hour-long episodes tightens the pressure as loyalties strain and private grief turns public. Set in the present day against a sweeping Cornish landscape, the drama is restrained, emotionally raw and quietly tense, with a melancholic, morally knotted tone. Fans of Big Little Lies and The Split will find resonance in its domestic intimacy, its wrenching family stakes and its focus on ordinary people facing an extraordinary choice.

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