Merlin star Colin Morgan will take the main role in BBC One’s new supernatural drama, The Living and the Dead.

Written by Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, co-creators and writers of Life On Mars, Eternal Law and Ashes To Ashes, the six-part series is currently filming in the West Country, directed by Alice Troughton (Merlin, In the Flesh).

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Colin Morgan, who will play Nathan Appleby, commented: “The Living And The Dead is one of those scripts that you read and are instantly compelled and engaged by. It’s intelligent, chilling and engrossing. It’s going to be very special and I can’t wait to start working on it with the wonderful creative team.”

Charlotte Spencer, who will play Nathan’s wife, added: “It’s always been a dream of mine to appear in a period drama and they don’t come better than this – fantastic, original scripts and, in Charlotte Appleby, a superb character who’s strong, passionate and gutsy. Couple this with an incredible director, crew and cast, I can’t wait to get started!”

Co-writer Ashley Pharoah said: “I am completely thrilled that Colin and Charlotte are joining us on our adventure. The characters they play – Nathan and Charlotte Appleby – dominate the series and I couldn’t be more excited to see what they do with them.”

The official synopsis reads: “Somerset, 1894. A house that’s almost as old as the English countryside itself. A brilliant young couple inherit the farm and are determined to start a new life together. But their presence in this isolated corner of England starts to unleash strange, unsettling and dangerous supernatural phenomena that will start to threaten their marriage.

“This is a drama steeped in the eeriness of the rural world at the moment when the industrial revolution came crashing in to disrupt all the old certainties. Uncanny, intriguing, disturbing. At the series’ heart is the love story of Nathan and Charlotte Appleby: deeply in love with each other but put under extraordinary pressure, they will have to fight to save their marriage and their home.”

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