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:

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.

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 - 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!)

Whitechapel to return

ITV has announced that a second series of Whitechapel is going ahead:

Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton will reprise their roles as Chandler, Miles and Buchan, to solve a series of copycat murders reminiscent of crimes committed by the infamous Krays.

ITV's Director of Drama Commissioning Laura Mackie, says: "Whitechapel II will be full of the history, texture and detail that gave the first series a distinctive personality.

"It will be as audacious and compelling as the first series, strengthened by further character development and very real personal jeopardy. We're delighted to be commissioning more episodes following the success of Whitechapel I."

Pre-production begins in autumn 2009.

Rupert Penry-Jones - Simon Mayo show

I haven't listened to it yet so I don't know if anything relevant to Euro Crime is being discussed, but today's Daily Mayo podcast contains an interview with former Spooks star, Rupert Penry Jones. Download or listen at the Radio 5 website.

Rupert Penry-Jones interview in the Times

The Times has an interview with Rupert Penry-Jones which touches on Spooks and Whitechapel. On Whitechapel:

As for Whitechapel, he plays a policeman hunting a murderer who has a Jack the Ripper fixation. Hasn’t he had enough of this sort of stuff?

“After Spooks, the idea of playing a policeman didn’t thrill me,” he admits. “But when I read the script, I wanted to know what happened at the end. This character is different [from Adam]. He’s got a lot of flaws, he’s a bit strange, he’s not your obvious hero. It’s still a good guy catching a bad guy, but I couldn’t walk away from it.”

Read the whole interview, here.

Rupert Penry-Jones - Observer interview

Read a brief 'My Body & Soul' interview with the former star of Spooks in the Observer. Mr P-J is the male face of Austin Reed from whence the above photo came.

ITV's Whitechapel which also stars Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton as well as Penry-Jones is rumoured to be shown in January.

Spooks - tie novels (Adam Carter)

The third of the tie-in personnel files for Spooks was released yesterday. The first one was about several of the Spooks team, the second focused on Harry and the third is all about Adam Carter:

Synopsis from amazon:
First we learnt about their backgrounds from their personnel files, then we learnt how Harry Pearce really feels about the world we live in from his secret diary. Now, learn further secrets about the crack MI5 team, otherwise known as the Spooks, in this brand new and exciting title from Headline.

BBC to remake The Thirty-Nine Steps

From The Guardian:











One of the centrepieces of the BBC's Christmas schedule will be a feature-length adaptation of The Thirty-nine Steps, the spy thriller later turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, "reimagined" for the Jason Bourne generation.

The BBC is set to unveil its plans for the new version, which will star Spooks actor Rupert Penry-Jones, today before filming begins in Scotland next month.

An instant hit on its publication in 1915, John Buchan's novel features a restless adventurer, Richard Hannay, who meets a man who claims to be a spy. When he finds the man murdered in his flat, Hannay flees for Scotland, where he becomes entangled in a conspiracy which not only threatens his life but could lead to an invasion of Great Britain.

The BBC said the new version would be closer to the book than Hitchcock's 1935 film version starring Robert Donat.

"With this adaptation we wanted to stay faithful to the spirit and period of the book, but asked the writer, Lizzie [Mickery], to feel free to reimagine it for a modern audience more familiar with James Bond and Jason Bourne," said producer Lynn Horsford.

New ITV Dramas

From the Guardian:

ITV1 will add a touch of the macabre to its schedule this autumn with a gruesome modern-day Jack the Ripper drama starring Rupert Penry Jones.

One of three three new dramas for the autumn season, Whitechapel stars Jones as Chandler, a media-savvy young detective who works with an eccentric "Ripperologist" to investigate a series of bloody copycat murders.

Phil Davies has been cast as his hard-worn partner Miles in the Carnival Films production.

This autumn will also see Sean Bean return as swashbuckling hero Sharpe, this time training up a ramshackle group of soldiers on a dangerous adventure through India.

ITV has cast Kevin Whately, Geraldine Somerville and Lesley Sharp in its third commission, The Children.

Scripted by Peak Practice writer Lucy Gannon, the tense thriller focuses on the murder of a young girl and questions complex modern family relationships.