Watership Down writer Tom Bidwell first confirmed he was working on The Irregulars all the way back in 2018…
If you strain and cast your mind back to Christmas of 2018, you may remember that Tom Bidwell, who adapted Richard Adams’ Watership Down for the BBC, was first asked about a brand new series he was working on for Netflix.
“I’m currently working on a Netflix Original series called The Irregulars,” he teased, before going on to share some plot details. “Sherlock Holmes had a group of street kids he’d use to help him gather clues so our series is what if Sherlock was a drug addict and a delinquent and the kids solve the whole case whilst he takes credit. It’s my dream project and my oldest idea (I’ve been pitching it for ten years) and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working on it with the team I made My Mad Fat Diary with at Drama Republic. Netflix are incredibly supportive for our vision for the show and it’s allowing us to be very ambitious with the way we’re telling our stories.”
Then we learned that LAST Christmas The Irregulars had started filming! But then there was the pandemic, and the majority of productions shut down, including The Irregulars. Well, we thought we’d let you know some good news: Netflix has confirmed that the series has resumed filming in the UK!
Set in Victorian London, The Irregulars follows a gang of troubled delinquent teens who are manipulated into solving crimes for the sinister Doctor Watson and his mysterious business partner. As the crimes take on a horrifying supernatural edge and a dark power emerges, it’ll be up to the Irregulars to come together to save London, each other, and potentially the entire world.
The series stars Thaddea Graham (Letter For The King, Us) as Bea; Darci Shaw (Judy, The Bay) as Jessie; Jojo Marcari (Sex Education, Hard Sun) as Billy; McKell David (Snatch, Damilola Our Loved Boy) as Spike and Harrison Osterfield (Catch 22) as Leopold; Henry Lloyd-Hughes (Killing Eve, The Inbetweeners, Indian Summers) as Sherlock; Royce Pierreson (Judy, The Witcher, Line of Duty) as Doctor Watson; Clarke Peters (His Dark Materials, The Wire, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as Linen Man.
The story of the Baker Street Irregulars was last adapted by the BBC in 2007 as Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars. Written by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle it starred Jonathan Pryce as Holmes, Anna Chancellor as Irene Adler and Avengers: Age of Ultron star Aaron Taylor-Johnson as one of the Irregulars.
We’ll be sure to pass on more information about this very exciting series as soon as we get it!