BBC One has rounded out the cast for River.
Nicola Walker (Last Tango In Halifax), Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) and Lesley Manville (An Adventure In Space And Time) have joined the cast of the six episode drama series, which is being toplined by Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård and hails from The Hour scribe Abi Morgan, TVWise has learned.
River follows John River (Stellan Skarsgård), a brilliant police officer whose genius and fault-line is the fragility of his mind – a man haunted by the murder victims whose cases he must lay to rest. A man who must walk a professional tightrope between a pathology so extreme he risks permanent dismissal, and a healthy state of mind that would cure him of his gift.
Nicola Walker will play Detective Sergeant Jackie ‘Stevie’ Stevenson, River’s colleague and confidant; Eddie Marsan has been cast as a notorious killer who haunts River; while Leslie Manville plays Chief Inspector Chrissie Read, Detective River and Detective Stevenson’s superior officer. The series also stars Adeel Akhtar (Utopia) as Detective Sergeant Ira King; Sorcha Cusack (Father Brown) as Bridie, Stevie’s mother; and Georgina Rich (Sherlock) as Rosa, a police psychiatrist.
The six episode drama was penned by Abi Morgan, the Emmy award winning writer behind the shortlived BBC drama The Hour and The Iron Lady. Kudos Film & Television are producing, with Chris Carey serving as the series producer and Lucy Richer, Jane Featherstone, Manda Levin and Abi Morgan serving as executive producers. Burton And Taylor helmer Richard Laxton is attached to direct.
“Actors are agents of change. They carry the vision of an entire creative team”, said series creator and executive producer Abi Morgan. “A show like River needs broad shoulders and I can’t think of anyone better than Stellan Skarsgård to take on this challenge and lead this brilliant cast”.
