Channel 4 has announced the cast for the first of its upcoming dramas based on the short stories of award-winning sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick.

A co-production between Channel 4 and Sony Pictures Television, the “hugely ambitious” anthology series will be written and executive produced by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) and Michael Dinner (Justified) alongside Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston.

Announced last April, each episode of Electric Dreams: The World of Philip K. Dick will be “a sharp, thrilling standalone drama adapted and contemporised for global audiences by a creative team of British and American writers.”

Timothy Spall (The King’s Speech) will star in the first episode to be filmed, ‘The Commuter’, which is based on the short story of the same name by Philip K. Dick and is written by Jack Thorne (National Treasure).

The Harry Potter actor will play Ed Jacobson, “an unassuming employee at a train station who is alarmed to discover that a number of daily commuters are taking the train to a town that shouldn’t exist.”

The cast also includes Rebecca Manley (The Moorside), Anthony Boyle (Harry Potter And The Cursed Child), Rudi Dharmalingham (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Tuppence Middleton (Sense8), Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) and Ann Akin (Crackanory).

American writer Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) wrote 44 novels and 121 short stories, with the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck and The Adjustment Bureau all based on his works.

Are you looking forward to Electric Dreams? Let us know below…