Pixie Lott has joined the cast of BBC One’s crime drama series Inspector George Gently for the second film of its upcoming sixth season. Lott has been cast as Megan, an entertainer at the Blue Bird Holiday Camp in 1969.

Inspector George Gently is a crime drama set in 1960s Northumberland, about an old-school detective trying to come to terms with a time when the lines between the police and criminals have become blurred. The drama series is produced for BBC One by Company Pictures and stars Martin Shaw as Inspector George Gently and Lee Ingleby as Sergeant John Bacchus.

The show’s sixth season will be set in 1969 and picks up one year on from the season six finale in which Inspector Gently and Sergeant Bacchus were shot. Though injured, Gently (Martin Shaw) and Bacchus (Lee Ingleby) have both survived the shootings to fight another day. In the second film, written by Jess Williams, Gently and Bacchus are sent to a family holiday camp to investigate staff and holidaymakers, when the body of one of the entertainers is washed up nearby. The colourful inmates of the holiday camp, from the flamboyant owner and his sister, to the chalet girls, performers, lifeguards and guests, throw the investigation sideways as Gently and Bacchus uncover a story of jealousy, ambition and the dark underbelly of the permissive society.

“We were casting the second film of the new series of Inspector George Gently and were looking for someone to play Megan, an entertainer at the Blue Bird Holiday Camp in 1969. We were looking for an actress that could act, sing and dance and then I saw Pixie acting so brilliantly with Rowan Atkinson in their performance of Goodness Gracious Me (filmed for the NHS Organ Donation ‘From The Heart’ campaign)”, said producer Matthew Bird. “It was a brilliant remake of the classic Sixties song performed by Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers – and that was it! Pixie was very excited about joining the cast and we are delighted that Pixie is to make her TV acting debut in Inspector George Gently – we know she will bring something very special to the role.”

While Pixie Lott added: “I love the fact that Inspector George Gently is a period drama set in the Sixties and I can’t wait to play the role of Megan. It will be great to be filming in the North East, and getting to play a role that gives me a real feel for the period.”