S.C. Elaine Jenkinson

Elaine Jenkinson arrives in Broadchurch's courtroom drama as legal counsel, her title marking her out as a serious professional operating within the trial that consumes the town. She is measured and exacting, more interested in procedure and argument than in the emotional wreckage around her, and she carries herself like someone who has done this before and won't be rattled by it.

Tracey Childs brings a dry, controlled authority to a role that could easily be furniture in a courtroom scene. She works because the performance suggests a whole career of composure being tested by a case that refuses to stay tidy, and because that restraint offers a cool counterpoint to the raw grief surrounding her.