TV News: Dark Heart on ITV

Dark Heart begins on ITV on Wednesday 31 October at 9pm, with the second part of the six-part series showing the following day. These first two episodes were orginally broadcast as a film, in 2016, on ITV Encore.

The series is based on/inspired by the books by Adam Creed.

Series overview from ITV's website:

Tom Riley stars as DI Will Wagstaffe, a man haunted by the murder of his parents when he was 16 years old.

Set in London and produced by Silverprint Pictures, the series is written for ITV by acclaimed screenwriter Chris Lang whose work includes award-winning drama Unforgotten, Torn, Undeniable and A Mother’s Son. Dark Heart is inspired by characters created by novelist Adam Creed, who has written a series of books featuring Will Wagstaffe.

Whilst devoting his life to his work, DI Will Wagstaffe, also known as Staffe to his colleagues, battles personal demons. He’s haunted by the unresolved murder of his parents, which affects both his private and professional life including his on-off romance with sometimes girlfriend, Sylvie (Miranda Raison). His closest relationship is with his sister Juliette, (Charlotte Riley) and young nephew Harry, who stays with him when Juliette has troubles with her boyfriend.

With no parents and no significant partner of his own, Juliette and Harry mean everything to Staffe. Determined and tenacious, Wagstaffe is an exceptionally good police officer, in spite of the fact he’s been known for pushing the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable policing.

Simenon news x 2

No sooner have ITV released the following news, (link via The Radio Times) that Rowan Atkinson is to play Maigret (filming to begin in September):

ITV has announced a new adaptation of George Simenon's novels about Parisian sleuth Jules Maigret. The books were originally adapted by the BBC in the 1960s, before Michael Gambon stepped into the detective's shoes in an ITV version in 1992.

Atkinson will now play Maigret in two stand-alone, 120-minute films for the channel. Both dramas will be set in 1950s Paris, with screenwriter Stewart Harcourt adapting the books Maigret Sets a Trap and Maigret's Dead Man.

then the New York Times releases an article on the author himself .

TV News: Grantchester Start Date

The new series, Grantchester, based on the first book in James Runcie's Sidney Chambers series, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death begins on ITV, Monday 6 October at 9pm.

There is a huge billboard outside the train station I use:

From the Radio Times:

Happy Valley actor James Norton will star alongside Robson Green for the six-part series, which is set in 1950s Cambridgeshire.

Adapted from the novel, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie, the series is written for ITV by Daisy Coulam, who has previously scripted EastEnders and Casualty.

Set against the backdrop of the real hamlet of Grantchester, the drama focuses upon the life of Sidney Chambers (Norton), a charismatic, charming clergyman who turns investigative vicar when one of his parishioners dies in suspicious circumstances.

Soldier Soldier star Green plays plain-speaking, over-worked police inspector, Geordie Keating, whose methodical approach to policing complements Sidney’s more intuitive techniques of coaxing information from witnesses and suspects.

Executive Producer Diederick Santer says of the series: “Grantchester is a real labour of love for me and [production company] Lovely Day. Sidney is a charming, but complex character, a man of faith burdened by his past despite a distinguished wartime record, he’s funny, dashing and inquisitive. He loves being a parish priest in the exquisite village of Grantchester, but somehow it’s not enough and he still finds time to fall in and out of love and solve crimes.

TV News: Endeavour returns on Sunday

The second series of Endeavour begins on Sunday 30 March at 8pm on ITV. The first of the four episodes, Trove, is directed by Kristoffer Nyholm, who directed The Killing.

From the ITV website:

May 1966. DC Endeavour Morse returns to Oxford City Police after a four-month absence from duty. Reunited with DI Fred Thursday, still reeling from the final moments of Series 1, the young detective's involuntary furlough has left him wounded - in mind, more than body.

Another dazzlingly complex mystery is set in motion during a Broad Street parade, celebrating the might of Britain's military accomplishments. The festivities, soured by a rash student stunt, are thrown into sharp relief when a John Doe plummets to his death from a nearby council building. A clutch of business cards bearing multiple identities suggest the death was more than just a routine suicide. Endeavour flexes his gumshoe muscles to uncover the corpse's identity - a solitary pursuit that builds to a trip to London with troubling consequences. Whilst a concerned Thursday looks on, the fractured pieces of the kaleidoscope mirror the young detective's state of mind, as he pulls two seemingly unrelated cases into the fray - an anguished father searching for a missing daughter, and a smash-and-grab robbery of medieval artifacts at Oxford's Beaufort College.

All strands coalesce around the victim's final message, scrawled on a motel notepad: D-DAY, FRIDAY, 98018. As Oxonians go to the polls in a closely fought by-election and a beauty contest builds to its conclusion, Endeavour must navigate the choppy waters of both worlds, as his investigation shakes the highest pillars of Oxford society. With the body count rising and his fierce intellect slowly drawing back into focus, the young detective risks all to bring those responsible to justice. It is a decision that will send shockwaves across the course of the series.

TV News: Grantchester (based on James Runcie's novel)

ITV released a press release yesterday about a new six-part series, Grantchester based on Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, the first in the Sidney Chambers series by James Runcie.

“As a priest, isn’t everything our business?  There’s no part of the human heart which is not our responsibility” – Sidney Chambers

ITV have today confirmed James Norton (Death Comes to Pemberley, Rush) will play the role of Sidney Chambers in new six-part drama Grantchester produced by Lovely Day. 

Robson Green (Reckless, Wire In The Blood) will join him as plain speaking, over-worked Police Inspector, Geordie Keating.  

Set in 1953 in the beautiful county of Cambridgeshire, Sidney’s unlikely partnership with gruff, down to earth Geordie is central to Grantchester.  Geordie’s methodical approach to policing complements Sidney’s more intuitive techniques of coaxing information from witnesses and suspects.  

They are partners in crime and forge a true friendship as each offers a different insight into the crimes they begin to unravel.

Set against the backdrop of the real hamlet of Grantchester, the drama focuses upon the life of Sidney Chambers, a charismatic, charming clergyman who turns investigative vicar when one of his parishioners dies in suspicious circumstances.     

A tall and handsome man with a love of warm beer and hot jazz, Sidney is self-effacing, great company and a true romantic.  He conscientiously undertakes his parish duties at the church of St Andrew and St Mary’s, and has the ear of his congregation who respect his unique moral insights and dry humour.  Sidney thinks the best of people, but intuitively asks all the right questions which often results in an epiphany!  

 

Troubled by nightmares and recurring flashbacks to the time he served in the Scot’s Guards, Sidney is the moral compass of the drama with a desire to put right the wrongs of the past  – “we cannot erase our pasts however hard we try.  Instead we must carry them with us into the future.”

 

Read the whole press release here.

TV News: Banks & Gently return next week

DCI Banks and Inspector George Gently return to UK screens next week.

The third series of DCI Banks, based on Peter Robinson's series, with Stephen Tompkinson in the lead role, is six episodes, with two-parters of Wednesday's Child, Piece of My Heart and Bad Boy (the sixth, sixteenth and nineteenth books respectively in the series) and begins on Monday 3rd February at 9pm on ITV1.

From the ITV website:

The series sees the return from maternity leave of DS Annie Cabbot, played by Andrea Lowe (Love Life, Monroe), immediately thrown into a harrowing case for a new single mother. Having acknowledged their feelings for one another in the last series, the new episodes focus on whether a romantic relationship between Banks and Annie can ever be a reality. However, there are inevitable complications as the pair come to acknowledge their own unique and challenging roles as colleagues and parents.

Caroline Catz (Doc Martin) also returns to the series playing DI Helen Morton, the disarmingly blunt and often socially inept detective who joined Banks’ team when Annie left for maternity. Helen has to confront her inflexible approach to both her home and work life; can her relationship with Banks help her to understand when to bend the rules? With both Helen and Annie working under Banks, will he successfully be able to juggle the opposing views of these two strong willed independent women? How far will Banks go to keep both these women at his side?

This series also sees the surprise introduction of Banks’ university dropout daughter, Tracy. Although on the surface, Banks and Tracy have a good relationship, it becomes clear that neither father nor daughter really know each other as well as they pretend. The distance between the pair means Banks cannot see the real danger Tracy soon throws herself into until it is too late.

Inspector George Gently, starring Martin Shaw, returns for a sixth series (seventh if you include the pilot) consisting of four ninety-minute episodes and is set in 1969. The series takes its name from the George Gently series by Alan Hunter though Hunter's books were set in East Anglia, the series is set, and now filmed, in Northumberland.

The first episode, Gently Between the Lines, is on Thursday 6th February at 8.30pm on BBC One:

It is 1969, and approximately six months since the shootings in the cathedral. Gently is taken by surprise when he learns of Bacchus's resignation, realising that his sergeant has lost his confidence. Still suffering his own scars from the incident, Gently sets about fixing Bacchus and insists that he help him investigate a death in custody - a case that has both Gently and Bacchus questioning what it means to be a police officer at a time when attitudes to the police are changing. Meanwhile, the victim's family ask the pertinent question: 'aren't the police supposed to protect us?'.

TV News: The Bletchley Circle series 2

The Bletchley Circle returns to ITV on 6 January at 9pm with the first episode of four. The four episodes will be divided into two stories. The synopsis, from the ITV press release, for the first story is below:

Olivier award nominated actress Hattie Morahan joins Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Sophie Rundle and Julie Graham for four new episodes of the code-breaking thriller The Bletchley Circle, which returns to ITV at the beginning of 2014.

The series, based on the lives of four extraordinary and brilliant women who worked at top-secret HQ Bletchley Park during World War II, features two self-contained stories each played out across 2 x 60 minute episodes written by series creator Guy Burt.

Set a year on from the first series in 1953, the ladies are reunited for their second case in the first two-part story when former Bletchley Park colleague, Alice Merren (Hattie Morahan) is accused of murder. Jean (Julie Graham) methodically sets to work examining the evidence and is intent on helping Alice after a distinguished scientist is discovered shot through the heart in the study of his home with Alice, gun in hand, standing over him.

The evidence is stacked against her, but Jean’s instincts tell her differently and she goes to visit Alice in Holloway Prison. Alice is quietly resigned to the fact she will hang. But why has she offered no defence and why does she refuse to talk?

Jean calls on the ladies to reunite, but will they share her faith in Alice’s innocence?

Broadchurch News

Acclaimed ITV series Broadchurch is to become a book, co-written by the series creator Chris Chibnall and Erin Kelly. From The Independent:

The novel will elaborate on the existing plot and delve deeper into the lives and backstories of the characters. It will also include “previously unseen material”, according to publishers Little, Brown.

The acclaimed drama, written by Law & Order and Doctor Who writer Chibnall, followed a grief-stricken family coming to terms with the mysterious death of their son Tom Latimer.

Chibnall said: “The day after Broadchurch finished, a woman stopped me on West Bay beach and asked me ‘When’s the book coming out?’. Now I have an answer! Even better, we have one of Britain’s best psychological thriller authors at the helm.”

Kelly, whose novels include The Burning Air and The Poison Tree, said she was “thrilled” to be writing the novel alongside Chibnall.

“Like everyone else I know, I was gripped and moved by Broadchurch. I’m utterly thrilled to be writing the novel, not least because it gave me an excuse to watch the whole series again, multiple times,” she said.

“It’s testament to the writing, the performances and the photography that I was spellbound even when I knew the outcome. I can’t wait to delve even deeper into the hearts and thoughts of the characters and to bring the town to life on the page.”

A second series has been commissioned but there are no details at the moment with TV Dagger Awards winners David Tennant and Olivia Colman unconfirmed for the sequel. Meanwhile David Tennant is reprising his role for the US remake.

TV News: Big Four reunite for Poirot's The Big Four

I'm pleased to see the return of Japp, Hastings and Miss Lemon!

From an ITV press release yesterday:

Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson and Pauline Moran are reunited with David Suchet for Agatha Christie’s The Big Four.

Last seen together in the television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson and Pauline Moran are back to reprise their iconic roles as Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp and Miss Lemon alongside David Suchet as the legendary Hercule Poirot in The Big Four.

Adapted by award-winning screenwriter and actor Mark Gatiss and actor Ian Hallard, The Big Four plunges Poirot into a world of global espionage where he uncovers a theatrical tale of murder, secrets, lies and love, set against the backdrop of the impending World War II.

As a deadly game of chess unfolds, Russian grandmaster, Dr Ivan Savaranoff (Michael Culkin) meets a shocking end, sending the public spiralling into panic, as suspicion is cast upon Peace Party stalwarts Abe Ryland (James Carroll Jordan) and Madame Olivier (Patricia Hodge). In one of his toughest challenges yet, Poirot must work out who the good guys are from the bad, as a complex plot sees a host of international figures used like pawns by a gang of dangerous dissidents tagged “The Big Four”.

As the murders and disappearances stack up one by one, Poirot is joined in his investigations by his old friend Japp (Philip Jackson), the dogged journalist Tysoe (Tom Brooke), and struggling actress, Flossie Monro (Sarah Parish), in an attempt to snare the killer and shatter “The Big Four” for good.

TV News: The Poison Tree on ITV soon

Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree has been made into two one-hour episodes, the first of which will be shown on 10 December at 9pm on ITV1:

Karen Clarke (MyAnna Buring) has spent twelve years waiting for her partner Rex (Matthew Goode) to be released from prison. Now he is free, she is looking forward to settling down to normal family life in their remote seaside cottage with their 11 year old daughter Alice (Hebe Johnson). But then Karen starts to receive silent phone calls and anonymous text messages and she can’t shake the feeling that she and her family are constantly being watched. It seems that despite her best efforts to keep their past a secret, someone somewhere knows the truth about what she and Rex did.
 
Flash backs to the long, hot summer of 1999, when Karen was a student and first met Rex and his impossibly glamorous sister Biba (Ophelia Lovibond), gradually reveal Karen, Rex and Biba’s shared history in the crumbling Highgate mansion that they share – their intense, almost incestuous relationships, and the hedonistic party lifestyle that culminates in the tragic events that leave two people dead.
 
As the threat to Karen draws ever nearer, gradually the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and the truth of what happened that fateful day emerges. But it seems that Karen is concealing deeper, darker secrets than even Rex realises. If he wasn’t guilty of murder, then who was? And how far will Karen go to protect the family that she has sacrificed so much for?

MyAnna Buring & Matthew Goode

TV News: Endeavour & Lewis to return

The Radio Times is reporting that ITV have commissioned four two-hour episodes of Endeavour and a new series of Lewis will be shown in May:

Shaun Evans will return to the role of Endeavour Morse for four 120-minute episodes, to be filmed on location in Oxford later this year. Joining him will be Roger Allam as senior partner Inspector Fred Thursday and James Bradshaw as Dr Max Debryn, while John Thaw's daughter will make further guest appearances.

The new series will be produced by Dan McCulloch and executive produced by Mammoth Screen’s joint managing directors, Michele Buck and Damien Timmer.

“We’re delighted to be making a series of Endeavour and have been overwhelmed by the reaction to the first film,” said McCulloch. “Russell Lewis has some bold plans to further enrich the mythology of Morse, introducing some significant new characters, and re-establishing some old favourites, all of whom are destined to have a massive impact on the future inspector's life.”

Novelist Colin Dextor, whose first Morse story Last Bus to Woodstock was published in 1975, will act as consultant for the series.

Michele Buck and Damien Timmer also oversee Lewis in conjunction with ITV Studios and the broadcaster also reports that new episodes of the drama are set to air in May.

Four x 120-minute films have been produced with Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox in the lead roles of Inspector Robbie Lewis and DS James Hathaway with Clare Holman also returns as Dr Laura Hobson and Rebecca Front as Chief Superintendent Innocent.

Whitechapel III - Imminent

My tv guide is featuring Whitechapel III in its next edition which means it should start sometime in the w/c 28 January. Here's the teaser trailer released on Christmas Day:

Without You - Coming Soon to ITV1

According to my tv guide, ITV1 will be showing Without You next month. Without You is a two-part drama based on Nicci French's What to Do When Someone Dies and stars Anna Friel and Marc Warren. Here's the tv programme blurb:

School teacher Ellie Manning and her husband Greg are trying for a baby. One evening Greg doesn't return home from work and when the police knock on the door, Ellie is horrified to learn he has been killed in a terrible car accident. The police tell Ellie that Greg wasn't alone, a woman sitting in the passenger seat was also killed. A tormented Ellie begins to question: who is the mystery woman and was Greg having a secret affair?

Drowning in grief yet unable to accept Greg's infidelity, Ellie sets out to prove it to her sceptical friends and family. She borrows her best friend's identity to infiltrate the mystery woman's workplace and leaves no rock unturned to find out the truth, even if it puts her own life at risk.

ITV to do more DCI Banks

ITV's pilot of the DCI Banks series starring Stephen Tompkinson was successful enough for them to commission adaptations of three more books. ITV has just announced on twitter that filming has begun today. The Inspector Banks website states that:

The three books being adapted are Playing With Fire, Friend of the Devil and Cold is the Grave.

These are nos 14, 17 and 11 respectively in the series by Peter Robinson. There will be two episodes per book.

I am a bit surprised that follow-up episodes have been commissioned as I was less than impressed with it and Tompkinson seemed very miscast.

Whitechapel 3 - set for 2012

The three leads from Whitechapel I and II are set to return in 2012 in another outing. From the ITV website:

Following the massive success of the first two runs, Whitechapel will return in 2012 with a new six-part series.

The intrepid team tracked down a blood-thirsty Jack the Ripper copycat in series one and faced off against the gangster brutality of a new generation of Krays in series two. But now they are now faced with a whole new set of challenges…

The new series will find DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones), DS Miles (Phil Davis) and Edward Buchan (Steve Pemberton) spreading their investigations beyond the boundaries of Whitechapel, as they peel back the layers of some of the East End’s most gruesome history.

The East End will once again provide fertile ground for murder, body-snatching, poisoning and grisly discoveries, as the team's present day investigations echo three hundred years of crimes committed in the city's darkest recesses.

Ann Cleeves's Vera News

Hat-tip to Maxine for this news that Ann Cleeves's Vera has been recommissioned even before it's been shown. Here's the news from Ann's website:

Fans of Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope books are waiting impatiently for the transmission of Vera, the television series, starring Brenda Blethyn as DI Vera Stanhope. The original plan was for the adaptation of Ann's novel Hidden Depths, to be broadcast in the autumn of 2010, but ITV were so pleased with this pilot episode that they commissioned three additional instalments, even before the first episode was broadcast. Trailers have already been screened, and we should soon have a chance to see four Vera Stanhope mysteries, based on Ann's three existing Vera Stanhope novels plus one entirely new story, all filmed on locations in the north east of England.

January's Books to TV shows

The tv version of Michael Dibdin's Zen series will begin on 2 January on BBC One at 9pm. It starts with the second book in the series, Vendetta, and stars Rufus Sewell as Aurelio Zen. Cabal will be shown on 9 January. Read an interview with the stars, Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino on the BBC website.

In Vendetta, Zen is called upon by the Ministry to re-investigate a multiple murder. Flamboyant millionaire and Government construction magnate Oscar Faso and his guests have been shot dead at his lavish villa. Prime suspect and friend of Faso, Renato Favelloni, has "found God" in prison and is retracting his confession, a move which stands to send shockwaves through Government – so Zen must intervene. All the evidence points towards Favelloni's guilt but Zen is convinced he is innocent. Zen heads into the mountains to investigate, reluctant to leave the promise of romance with Tania Moretti, the Chief's new assistant.

As he leaves, news breaks of another murder: Judge Bertolini, an anonymous figure in the Italian judicial system, is shot dead in his car. What Zen doesn't realise is that this unconnected murder is part of a vendetta carried out by a man wrongly imprisoned by Bertolini years earlier. More importantly, Zen's involvement in the case means he is next on the hit-list.

As he struggles between doing the right thing and saving his career, Zen must contend with hostile locals, an attempted kidnapping and a chase through a maze of underground tunnels while the killers draw ever closer to him.

The tv adaptation of the fourth book in the Anna Travis series, Deadly Intent, by Lynda La Plante is being shown in January. The first of the three-parter will be on 3 January at 9pm on ITV1.

DI Anna Travis (Kelly Reilly) is back after her promotion, reunited with DCS James Langton (Ciarán Hinds) and DCI Mike Lewis (Shaun Dingwall), who is also promoted to head up his first murder case, a fatal shooting in a notorious drug dealer’s squat. The victim is Frank Brandon (Callum Sutherland), disgraced ex-police officer and friend of Langton’s. The team discover that Frank has recently married Julia Larson (Stine Stengade), a glamorous, wealthy woman, after working as her driver. It’s an incongruous set-up, and Travis digs deeper into the not-so-grieving widow’s story.

You can read more about the plot and also "Lynda La Plante explains why her latest protagonists in Above Suspicion work so well" at the ITV website.

Sophie Hannah's crime series to be televised

News from the ITV press centre is that Sophie Hannah's The Point of Rescue (the third in the series featuring DC Simon Waterhouse and DS Charlie Zailer) is to be televised:

ITV today announced it has commissioned a new two-part drama, Point of Rescue (working title), based on the highly acclaimed and chilling psychological suspense novel from Sophie Hannah.

Point of Rescue will star Olivia Williams (The Ghost, Dollhouse, An Education, The Sixth Sense, Rushmore) in the lead role of DS Charlie Zailer and Darren Boyd (Whites, Personal Affairs, Little Dorrit, Green Wing) as DC Simon Waterhouse.

It's a story which explores themes of identity, guilt and family strife. The 2 x 60 min drama will be adapted for ITV by Hat Trick Productions.

When Geraldine Bretherick and her five-year-old daughter Lucy are found dead in the bathroom of their luxury home, the case divides new DS Charlie Zailer and her DC Simon Waterhouse. Is it murder, suicide or something even more sinister, and how watertight is the alibi of the husband Mark?

Meanwhile, when Sally Thorne, a working mother with a husband and two young children, hears of the deaths, she is shocked and appalled. Months before she'd met a man called Mark Bretherick at a hotel and had a brief but passionate affair with him. Now she feels the need to get in touch with him again to offer her sympathy. Her friend Esther does not think this is very wise.

Point of Rescue (working title) will film on location in Buckinghamshire in October.

The whole press release is here.

Whitechapel II

The second series of Whitechapel, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, will this time focus on descendants of the Kray twins. I don't know when it'll be shown but it looks to be in ITV's Autumn/Winter schedule.


From ITV's press release:

Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis, and Steve Pemberton will appear in a second series of the critically acclaimed serial drama Whitechapel.

Whitechapel II once again draws on a set of iconic cult crimes born out of the area. After Jack the Ripper comes the gangster brutality of the Krays, and in Whitechapel II the paranoia of this era and the faded glamour of the former East End overlords will characterise the drama.

Peter Serafinowicz (The Peter Serafinowicz Show) will play DCI Cazenove and Craig Parkinson, (Lark-Rise to Candleford) will play twins, Jimmy and Johnny Kray.

Returning to write the second series are Ben Court and Caroline Ip and Sally Woodward Gentle will executive produce the series.

Woodward Gentle said: "Whitechapel II will be as sharp, intense and as visually distinctive as the first series with the gangster culture of the Krays never far away. Once again the streets of Whitechapel yield an extraordinary story and we are delighted, if slightly scared, to be going back there again."

TV News: Law and Order UK

From the ITV press release issued today:

LAW & ORDER: UK – SERIES 3

The cream of British acting talent are back together for the third series of the hugely successful ‘Law & Order: UK’. Series 1 and 2 have proved a huge hit with viewers, averaging 5.9 million viewers an episode. The programme covers diverse storylines taken from the original hit US series but all with a distinctly British perspective. Now the teams are back to solve more perplexing crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

BRADLEY WALSH is DS Ronnie Brooks, a real East End, copper’s copper, friend and partner to the charming DS Matt Devlin, JAMIE BAMBER whose approach to policing is part seduction part force. Both report to DI Natalie Chandler, HARRIET WALTER, a working mum who would back them to the end.

While the CPS team comprises BEN DANIELS as dedicated Senior Crown Prosecutor James Steel, a man on a mission for justice; FREEMA AGYEMAN , as hard working, strong-willed young prosecutor Alesha Phillips; and BILL PATERSON as their respected boss CPS director George Castle, a man trying to balance his ideals with the bigger picture.

The new cases faced by the teams are even more compelling and shocking then those featured in previous series. They include: a toddler being led to his death, a 16 year old girl found dead in her home in the middle of the afternoon, a prison officer shot dead on a council estate, a mysterious killer using a bayonet to slay his victims, the stabbing of a student and the murder case of DS Matt Devlin’s best friend.

Guest stars across the new series include: Rupert Graves, Deborah Findlay, Kevin Doyle, Rocky Marshall, Patrick Malahide, Ruth Gemmell, Matthew Marsh, Celyn Jones, Wunmi Mosaku, and Robbie Gee.

‘Law & Order: UK - Series 3’ is brand new and exclusive to ITV1, Thursdays from 9^th September at 9pm