Sarah Lancashire, known for the BBC drama Happy Valley, set in the West Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge, has also recently featured alongside Keira Knightley in Black Doves, which returns for its second series this week.
Lancashire plays Mrs Reed, a secretive spymaster whose job is to oversee Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a mother, wife and spy who has been passing secrets from her politician husband, Wallace, to the covert organisation Black Doves for the past decade.
When Helen’s secret lover, Jason (Andrew Koji), is killed, Reed recruits her old friend, Sam Young (Ben Whishaw), to protect her. Following the success of the first series, Sarah and Keira are returning for a new, explosive chapter. The stakes are higher than ever, with Wallace preparing to become Prime Minister and Mrs Reed becoming ensnared in a ruthless plot.
Lancashire is also set to appear in the Netflix drama Witch Hunt, a six-part series. She’ll play August Howell, a descendant of the ‘Witch of Cambridge’, who has been released from prison after serving 30 years for drowning her three young daughters.
Understandably, August is not welcomed back into the community. When concerns grow that her return has triggered a modern-day witch hunt in the university town, the police must turn to August’s last surviving daughter, Professor Wren Howell, an academic and investigative psychologist, to help find the killer as past resentments and local folklore collide.
Speaking about the new series, Sarah Lancashire said: “It’s a brilliantly imagined and utterly compelling story, with a deeply complex character at its heart. There’s so much to explore in August, and I can’t wait to begin.”
Creator, writer and executive producer Abi Morgan added: “I am delighted to be bringing Witch Hunt to Netflix. A dark, yet emotionally charged love story between August Howell, newly released from prison for murdering her children, and the daughter she has left behind after 30 years inside. I last worked with Sarah Lancashire over 25 years ago. I have been chasing the perfect role for her ever since. This is it.
“I can’t think of anyone better to embody the terrifying tenderness of ‘the Witch of Cambridge’. It’s gothic horror meets dark thriller, laced with modern-day witchcraft, raising the question: can August ever be forgiven for her crime?”
You can catch series one of Black Doves on Netflix. And,Series two will be on Thursday 5th November.
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Feature Image Credit: Netflix
