The Steven Moffat penned thriller launches on Monday, 26th September.
With the show launching next Monday and Tuesday, the BBC have dropped a trailer for Inside Man.
The drama, from Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula writer Steven Moffat, has gathered an impressive cast to spin its tale of murderous intrigue. The show boasts David Tennant, Stanley Tucci, Dolly Wells and Lydia West in lead roles.
The wider ensemble includes Lyndsey Marshal, Atkins Estimond, Mark Quarterly, Tilly Vosburgh, Louis Oliver, Kate Dickie and Dylan Baker.
Here’s the premise for Inside Man:
The four part series follows a prisoner on death row in the US, a Vicar in a quiet English town, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar, as they cross paths in the most unexpected way…
“Everyone is a murderer, you just have to meet the right person…”
Ahead of the launch, the cast have been speaking about the show:
David Tennant plays vicar Harry Watling
Describing his character, David Tennant says:
“Harry is a vicar in a rather picturesque English village. He seems to have a very happy life, secure in himself, popular with his parishioners and quite a modern vicar. He’s not afraid to use the odd swear word and talk about the world as it is. He has a wife and a teenage son and they seem to be living a fairly normal, happy life.”
He also praises the particular Moffat-ish nature of script:
“I just read the script and wanted to be part of it, it’s very particular to Steven Moffat’s brain. When you read that first episode it’s hugely intriguing. These two very distinct storylines are both entirely plausible, textured and fascinating in themselves and they are running side by side. It’s very difficult I think to immediately imagine how they will ever come together on different sides of the world, for these characters living entirely separate existence, they couldn’t seem to be more different.”
“Yet as an audience we assume there must be some link but really we’re quite far into the story before those links start to appear. It’s part of the set-up of the sort of puzzle of that along with the almost breath-taking awfulness of what occurs, the incremental steps to doom that Harry takes, the unravelling of normality. Steven described it as a sitcom that goes terribly wrong.”
Stanley Tucci plays Jefferson Grieff, a criminologist who’s on death row awaiting his execution
Stanley Tucci describes what attracted him to the show:
“What attracted me to the project was the group of people assembled – Steven Moffat, director Paul McGuigan who I had worked with before, and I love Steven’s writing. I loved the Sherlocks and I think he is an amazing writer. I think David Tennant is just a great, great actor and Lydia and Dolly too – it’s an amazing group of people.”
He also describes working with Steven Moffat:
“It’s wonderful, there’s a lot to do, there’s a lot to say, it’s more like a play in a lot of ways for actors than it is for a television show. It’s not shot like a play, it’s shot like a television show. The length of each scene is much longer than one would normally find so you have to prepare yourself for that. There are very lengthy speeches, lengthy dialogue scenes, but if you’re prepared it works out. It’s so well written that it’s just fun.”
Lydia West plays Beth Davenport, an investigative journalist
She describes her character:
“Beth is confident, she’s ambitious, she’s career driven and doesn’t take no for an answer.”
And considers how Beth changes throughout the show:
“Her personality does change, throughout the show we kind of see her go through and face such difficult situations and how she handles it is very telling of who she is. So Beth at times is compassionate, empathetic and scared but mostly she remains quite consistent in her personality.”
She also talks about what attracted her to Inside Man:
“I was initially attracted to the project because I have worked with Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue before on Dracula and I just think they are amazing and so good at what they do and I am a huge fan of their work. Then I realised Paul McGuigan was directing, who I also worked with on Dracula. I just think he is a fantastic director. This was all before I received the script, so then I read the script and it was just a page turner for me.”
Dolly Wells plays Janice Fife, a maths tutor
Describing Janice, she says:
“What’s complicated about Janice is what you see of her, your perception of who she really is might change. She’s in theory somebody with a very very strong moral code of ethics, she is a real advocator for the truth right from the beginning. So she’s sort of tough, she’s not immediately likeable, I like her *laughs* but she’s complicated.”
“If she was your maths tutor she might start to freak you out a bit. She’ll take over your house and make sure everybody is behaving how they should be behaving. She’s great because you think you should feel a certain way without giving too much away but then you think you should be rooting for her and yet you aren’t always.”
Inside Man begins on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Monday, Monday, 26 September at 9pm. Episode 2 follows on Tuesday 27th, with episodes 3 and 4 the following week.