From the pen of the brilliant Sally Wainwright comes a brand new BBC drama series, Gentleman Jack. Wainwright, who has written the likes of Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley, has written and will direct the new eight-part drama, and the cast for the series has been announced.

Suranne Jones is set to headline this one, alongside Gemma Whelan, Gemma Jones, Stephanie Cole and Amelia Bulmore. There’s room in the ensemble too for a former Time Lord, with Peter Davison also part of the cast of this one.

The story itself – that’s a BBC and HBO co-production, is set in 1832, and the ensemble reads as follows…

After years of exotic travel, Anne Lister returns to Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1832, determined to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home Shibden Hall.

Every part of her story is based in historical fact, recorded in the four million words of her diaries that contain the most intimate details of her life, once hidden in a secret code that is now broken. Many of the diary extracts have been decoded for the very first time for the series.

Gentleman Jack is a remarkable and unlikely love story, set in the complex, changing world of Halifax – the cradle of the industrial revolution. The drama will explore Anne Lister’s relationships at home with her family, her servants, her tenants and her industrial rivals, who will use any dirty tricks they can to bring her down. At its heart is Anne’s relationship with her would-be wife, Ann Walker. The series has all the warmth, wit, humour and complexity that audiences have come to associate with Sally Wainwright’s writing.

Filming is set to start next month, with the shoot centring around West Yorkshire, with some location work in Denmark. Our guess is transmission will be set for 2019.