TV News - Silk & Sherlock

A couple of bits of tv news from last week. Firstly, the BBC announced Silk a new legal drama starring Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones:

Maxine Peake, Rupert Penry-Jones, Natalie Dormer, Tom Hughes and Neil Stuke star in Silk, a thrilling new drama series for BBC One about the lives, loves and hard cases facing barristers on the front line of criminal law, written by Bafta award-winning writer Peter Moffat.

Maxine Peake is Martha Costello, in her thirties, single, passionate and a defence barrister applying for silk. Innocent until proven guilty are four words she lives by. But how does this fundamental principle stand up to examination by clients who are sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes evil?

Martha is faced with challenging cases and surprising clients. Her beliefs and prejudices, her conscience and her faith in the criminal justice system are tested to the limit over the course of the series.

Former barrister Peter Moffat makes a return to BBC One, providing an insider's view into this exciting, morally complex, highly-charged world.

Peter says: "Silk is based on my experience at the bar. I want to tell it as it really is. The extreme pressure, the hard choices, the ethical dilemmas, the overlap between the personal and the professional, principles fought for and principles sacrificed, the Machiavellian politics, the sex, the drinking, the whole story – life at the bar is the richest possible drama territory."

Joining Martha is Clive Reader, played by Rupert Penry-Jones. He's funny, gifted and dangerous. The same age as Martha, they're called to the bar together. Both are applying for silk – how they perform in court is vital to this process and Clive knows how to play the game.

Read the rest of the press release here.

And Steven Moffat's Sherlock starts on BBC1 next Sunday, "featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and Rupert Graves as Detective Inspector Lestrade". (For once Rupert Graves isn't playing a baddie!)