Every now and again a concept for a show comes along that has the potential to be truly amazing. When I first heard about a new show being planned on ITV I must confess to being really excited about it.

You have all probably seen the show by now, its called Echo Beach, a soap opera set in Cornwall. Although this doesn?t sound like anything new at first glance, when you hear about the show that airs before hand called Moving Wallpaper it all starts to seem much more clever.

You see, Moving Wallpaper is the fictional show following the (fictional) production stages of Echo Beach. Lead by director Jonathan Pope (played absolutely brilliantly by Ben Miller) it shows the fake “behind the scenes” info that we don’t usually get to see. The whole “Show within a show” concept really appealed to me so I made a commitment to watch the first couple of episodes to see how it actually worked.

I was very pleasantly surprised with how good “Moving Wallpaper” was. The cast were brilliant and Ben Miller gets funnier with each episode. Its also great fun to spot the “in jokes” which later go on to appear in Echo Beach itself airing straight after it.

Echo Beach has a generally good cast, Jason Donovan (Daniel) and Martine McCutcheon (Susan) seem quite natural in their roles and Hugo Spears does a brilliant job of playing the rich, controlling character Mark Penwarden, Susan’s husband. Some of the younger cast do let the show down a little bit with their acting skills but I hold on to hope that this will all be ironed out in time as they gradually become a bit more natural on screen.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with how the show has turned out and although I’m currently enjoying Moving Wallpaper much more than the main Soap Echo Beach right now I’d love to see Echo Beach take off as a soup opera in its own rights. With a few more dramatic storylines and good plot twists I think it could have the definite potential to do just that!

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Full cast list for Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper: Ben Miller, Chandeep Uppal, Christian Cooke, Dave Lamb, Ed Speleers, Elizabeth Berrington, Gwyneth Powell, Hannah Lederer-Alton, Hugo Speer, James Lance, Jason Donovan, Johnny Briggs, Jonathan Readwin, Laura Greenwood, Louise Rose, Lucy Liemann, Marcus Patric, Mark Frost, Martine McCutcheon, Naomi Ryan, Patrick Adolphe, Perdita Avery, Raquel Cassidy, Sarah Hadland, Sinead Keenan, Steven Kynman, Susie Amy.