---
title: "Cutting It"
year: 2002
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/cutting-it"
fi1m_id: "cutting-it"
imdb_id: "tt0314996"
tmdb_id: 2571
wikidata_id: "Q5196987"
fi1m_score: 72
critics_reviews: 1
published: "2026-10-07T13:29:42.473664+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-07T13:29:43.243898+00:00"
region: "AE"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Cutting It (2002)

Created by Debbie Horsfield · 1h 00m · Drama, Comedy

## Identity

Cutting It

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/cutting-it
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** cutting-it
- **IMDb ID:** tt0314996
- **TMDB ID:** 2571
- **Wikidata ID:** Q5196987
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314996/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2571, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5196987

**Fi1m score: 72** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Two salons, one Manchester street, and nobody on either side can leave the other alone

> Debbie Horsfield’s hairdressing drama is a soap in a good coat: quick, funny, well cast and at its best when it does not ask to be believed. Sarah Parish holds it together across four series; by the last one, not much else does.

## Synopsis

Manchester. Allie Henshall (Sarah Parish) runs a busy hairdressing salon with her fiancé Gavin Ferraday (Jason Merrells), who would like a wedding date and, after that, a baby. Her sisters Sydney (Sian Reeves) and Darcey (Angela Griffin) work the chairs beside her, and her mother Brawdie (Annette Badland) and father Tom (Bill Thomas) are rarely out of the shop. Then a rival salon opens directly across the road, owned by Finn Bevan (Ben Daniels) and his wife Mia (Amanda Holden). Finn is the man Allie walked away from years ago and never quite got over, and nobody on either side of the street knows that yet. The first episode sets the two shops at war over clients, staff and gossip, with the younger stylists, Liam Carney (James Murray) and Troy Gillespie (David Leon), caught between them.

## Review

Debbie Horsfield writes about people who work with their hands and talk while they do it, and in *Cutting It* she gives them scissors. Two hairdressing salons face each other across a Manchester street. One belongs to Allie Henshall (Sarah Parish) and her fiancé Gavin Ferraday (Jason Merrells); the other is opened, in the first hour, by Finn Bevan (Ben Daniels) and his wife Mia (Amanda Holden). Allie and Finn have history. Gavin and Mia do not know. That is the engine, and Horsfield runs it for four series and twenty-five episodes, which is three series longer than the engine was built for.

It is good, and we want to be clear about that before we start listing what is wrong with it. The first series, which began on 16 April 2002, is as well-made a piece of mainstream British television as we had seen in a while. Horsfield writes dialogue people can say at speed, and she gives every character a job to do in every scene, so a conversation about a perm is also a conversation about a marriage. The salons themselves are the point. Everyone is looking at a mirror, which means everyone can see who is watching them.

Parish is the reason to watch. Allie is competent, sharp and quietly miserable, and Parish plays all three at once without underlining any of them. The scene in the first episode where she looks up from a client and sees Finn through the window across the road moved us more than a hairdressing drama had any right to. She does nothing. Her hands keep working. Daniels, opposite her, is cooler and harder to like, and that is correct; Finn is the sort of man who opens a shop across the road from an old lover and tells himself it is a business decision.

Around them, the cast is deep and mostly used well. Annette Badland’s Brawdie, the Henshall matriarch, got more laughs out of us than anyone, usually by saying the thing the whole room was thinking and then helping herself to a biscuit. Sian Reeves and Angela Griffin, as the sisters, are given real lives rather than reaction shots. Merrells has the hardest part, the decent man in the way, and manages to keep Gavin sympathetic even when the script needs him to be a fool. Amanda Holden’s Mia is brittle and expensive and works best when she is allowed to be funny.

The look is bright and clean. Four cinematographers, Sean Van Hales, Mark Waters, Ian Liggett and Grant Cameron, share the credit across the run, and between them they keep the salons white, glossy and over-lit, like a magazine spread you could walk into, while the Henshall kitchen stays cluttered and warm. Mark Hinton Stewart’s music is light and quick and sits under the pop songs rather than fighting them. Nine directors took turns, from Roger Goldby to Fraser Macdonald, and the house style is strong enough that you cannot tell where one hands over to the next. The five editors keep each hour moving at a clip; nothing lingers, which suits a show about people who talk fast.

The trouble is what Horsfield does once the first secret is out. Every series needs a new one, and they get bigger. By the fourth series, which arrived on 7 June 2005, the show has stopped being about two salons and started being about whatever will get it through the next hour. We will not say what happens. We will say that a story which began with a woman looking through a window ends up needing a great deal more than a window to shock us, and that we stopped believing in these people some time before the show stopped asking us to. The one critic we have read on the third series enjoyed exactly the chaos that wore us down, and we can see why; it is never boring. It is just no longer true.

Watch the first series on its own merits, and the second if you are enjoying yourself. After that you are watching a soap, a good one, and you should go in knowing it.

*Fi1m score 72, published 7 October 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is Cutting It worth watching?**

*Cutting It* is worth watching, chiefly for its first series and for Sarah Parish, and we scored it 72. Debbie Horsfield's dialogue is quick and funny, the cast is deep, and the rival salons on a Manchester street make a sound engine for a drama. The secrets get bigger and less believable with each series, so stop when you stop believing.

**How long is Cutting It, and what is it rated?**

*Cutting It* has episodes of about 1h 00m. It is a drama and comedy series.

**Where can I watch Cutting It in the UAE?**

*Cutting It* is not on any streaming or rental service in the UAE at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does Cutting It compare to Clocking Off?**

*Cutting It* is the lighter and more frivolous of the two Manchester dramas, and [*Clocking Off*](https://film.one/tv/clocking-off) is the better one. Paul Abbott's factory series gives one worker a crisis per hour and at its best is as good as British television drama gets; Horsfield's salon war is a soap in a good coat. Watch *Clocking Off* for weight and *Cutting It* for speed and laughs.

**What should I watch after Cutting It?**

After *Cutting It*, try [*Clocking Off*](https://film.one/tv/clocking-off) (2000, Fi1m 82): A textile factory, one worker’s story per episode, the best British working drama of its decade. Then [*Desperate Housewives*](https://film.one/tv/desperate-housewives) (2004, Fi1m 78): The American version of the same idea: neighbours, secrets, and a wink at the camera.

### Reviews we read (1)

- **The Guardian**, Sam Wollaston (80/100, inferred): Wollaston finds the third series entertaining and praises its boldly tangled plotlines. He singles out Gavin’s extraordinary family relationships as a perfect encapsulation of the drama’s chaotic spirit. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/apr/28/broadcasting.tvandradio1)

## Details

- **Created by:** Debbie Horsfield
- **Creator:** Debbie Horsfield
- **Director:** Andy De Emmony, Catherine Morshead, Euros Lyn, Julie Anne Robinson, Fraser Macdonald, John Alexander, Roger Goldby, David Kerr, Philip John
- **Writer:** Debbie Horsfield
- **Cinematography:** Mark Waters, Ian Liggett, Grant Cameron, Sean Van Hales
- **Editor:** Paul Endacott, Stephen O'Connell, Nick Arthurs, Peter Hallworth, Chris Barwell
- **Music:** Mark Hinton Stewart
- **Cast:** Amanda Holden as Mia Bevan; Sarah Parish as Allie Henshall; Sian Reeves as Sydney Henshall; Angela Griffin as Darcey Henshall; Ben Daniels as Finn Bevan; Jason Merrells as Gavin Ferraday; James Murray as Liam Carney; Annette Badland as Brawdie Henshall
- **Runtime:** 1h 00m
- **Release (the UAE):** 16 April 2002
- **Genres:** Drama, Comedy

## Where to watch in the UAE

Not streaming, renting or buying in the UAE at the last check.

Also available in: GB. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Playing the Field* (1998): Horsfield’s earlier women’s-football drama, same Northern energy, same knack for a quick argument.
- *Shampoo* (1975): Warren Beatty’s Beverly Hills hairdresser sleeps with his clients and still ends up alone.
- *Cold Feet* (1997): Manchester couples in trouble, written to make you laugh a second before it hurts.
- *Clocking Off* (2000), Fi1m 82: A textile factory, one worker’s story per episode, the best British working drama of its decade. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/clocking-off.md)
- *Desperate Housewives* (2004), Fi1m 78: The American version of the same idea: neighbours, secrets, and a wink at the camera. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/desperate-housewives.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/cutting-it