This is the team following in the footsteps of Dixon of Dock Green, The Sweeney and The Bill in Danny Boyle’s new comedy-drama about London’s police force.
Babylon, by The Thick of It and Peep Show writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, tells the story of an American new media expert, played by Brit Marling, parachuted in to revolutionise the Metropolitan Police’s public relations department in the age of rolling news and smartphones.
James Nesbitt plays police commissioner Richard Miller, with Peep Show star Paterson Joseph as his deputy. The force includes Bertie Carvel, the award-winning Miss Trunchbull from the stage show Matilda, soap star Jill Halfpenny and Ella Smith, who played various roles in Boyle’s critically acclaimed production of Nick Dear’s Frankenstein at the National Theatre.
Daniel Kaluuya plays a fly-on-the-wall TV cameraman who is desperate to capture the action. The writers said they were excited to work on “the action-packed yet fiercely political world of modern policing”.
The feature-length pilot episode was shot in the autumn and will be broadcast early this year. A six-part series will go into production in the spring.
