The official synopsis reads: “When a young girl goes missing on her way to the Mayday parade, the small community in which she lives looks to one another for answers. But beneath the picture-postcard idyll lies a sinister other world and the dark woods teem with myth.

“As the community reels from Hattie’s disappearance, the drama follows the mass hysteria and ensuing search from the point of view of the central characters, each of whom fears that someone they know is responsible. As they keep silent, their suspicions intensify over the course of the five episodes.”

Sophie Okonedo (Doctor Who) will play Fiona, a young mum determined to protect her family, while Spooks star Peter Firth will play Malcolm, a community leader married to Gail, played by Lesley Manville.

Aidan Gillen (Queer as Folk) will play Everett, a single father to the sensitive Linus (Max Fowler) who has fallen in love with Hattie’s twin sister Caitlin (Leila Mimmack), who can feel it in her bones that her sister is dead.

Jane Featherstone from Kudos commented: “[Mayday is] a highly authored serial from Ben Court and Caroline Ip which has attracted a brilliant cast and takes an original look at a familiar story. There are no police incident rooms, autopsies or crime scene investigations, instead this is about a town facing the reality that the killer is among them, one of them.”

Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning added: “Ben Court and Caroline Ip have crafted a gripping thriller that takes us behind the scenes of a murder and examines the impact a devastating crime has on an ordinary neighbourhood.”

Directed by Brian Welsh (Black Mirror) and produced by Chris Fry (Spooks), filming begins next week in Dorking, Surrey.

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> Order Mayday on DVD on Amazon.

Watch a clip from the last ever episode of Spooks…