Liverpool actor David Morrissey to star in new James Graham drama for BBC One

Liverpool actor David Morrissey, Robert Glenister and Lesley Manville will star in playwright James Graham’s new drama Sherwood for BBC One.

The series, which is inspired by real events and set in the Nottinghamshire mining village where Graham grew up, will also star Joanne Froggatt, Robert Glenister, Alun Armstrong, Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook, Kevin Doyle, Lorraine Ashbourne, Philip Jackson, Perry Fitzpatrick, Adam Hugill and Stephen Tompkinson

The drama will tell the story of two unexpected killings that spark a massive manhunt and shatter an already fractured community, inflaming historic divisions sparked during the miners’ strike three decades before.

It will explore the deployment of undercover policing known as “spy cops”, as a community is forced to re-examine the events of decades past, in the context of post-Brexit Britain.

David Morrissey will play Detective Chief Superintendent Ian St Clair, who has risen through the ranks of Nottinghamshire constabulary.

He is tasked with finding the link between the two killings and is forced to reunite with DI Kevin Salisbury, played by Glenister, who is an old rival from the Metropolitan Police, whose return to the town heightens the tensions running through the community.

Armstrong plays Gary Jackson, a committed NUM member and one of the few miners from Ashfield who was on the picket line in the 1980s, while Manville plays his wife Julie, who is estranged from her sister Cathy over their divided loyalties during the miners’ strike.

Graham, whose previously work includes Quiz and Brexit: An Uncivil War, has written all six episodes and will serve as executive producer on the series, while Des director Lewis Arnold will serve as lead director of the series.

Filming for the show is under way now.