Louise Brealey has joined the cast of Ripper Street as a female physician in the new series.

The actress, who plays Molly in BBC One’s Sherlock, told Radio Times: “I’m playing one of the first women doctors. I’m really excited because I did history at university and I love a bit of research. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson blazed the trail in the 1870s and in the intervening decade or so a few extremely intrepid and unusual women started learning to be doctors themselves.”

Brealey’s character in the show, Dr Amelia Frayn, runs the Obsidian Clinic in Whitechapel. She joked: “…so I’m dressed very soberly and the other girls are all so ravishing. I’m like a little Jenny Wren. Literally, where are my pretty feathers?!”

Series 3 began filming in Manchester last month. Ripper Street was axed by BBC One after two series last December, but brand new episodes will now debut on Amazon Prime Instant Video before airing on BBC One later this year.

Brealey commented: “Everyone’s just delighted that it’s got another crack of the whip. They felt that they weren’t quite done with it.”

Sherlock writer Mark Gatiss recently revealed that he and Steven Moffat had “moved significantly closer to getting a date in the diary for Series 4”.

> Here’s everything we know about Series 4 so far.

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