The Hobbit and Sherlock actor Martin Freeman is set to star in a new series coming from BBC titled The Responder. In the series, Freeman will play a night shift officer in the British city of Liverpool.
The Responder was written by Tony Schumacher, a former police officer who has had a lifelong ambition to write for the screen. His six-part series features Freeman as cop named Chris, “who works night shifts with his new rookie partner, Rachel.”
Each of the episodes centers on a different shift, and the story is described as “wildly funny and painfully tragic.” It’s explained that Chris is “dealing with a marriage that is breaking down while policing Liverpool’s criminal underbelly, and the show deals with the realities of policing in Britain and the complexities of Freeman’s character.”
Freeman said in a statement: “Tony Schumacher’s script for The Responder resonated with me immediately. It felt like nothing that I’d read or seen.” Bowen, the CEO of Dancing Ledge, added: “Tony is one of the most talented new writers we’ve ever worked with. His ability to distill trauma, empathy, poetry and humor into every character he creates is extraordinary.”
Sounds like this will be a great show worth checking out.
Some of the other new shows being developed by BBC include:
My Name Is Leon, which is set in 1980s Britain, “tells the uplifting story of nine-year-old Leon, a mixed-race boy who attempts to keep his family together as his single-parent mother suffers a devastating breakdown.” Made for BBC One, the executive producers are Henry and Angela Ferreira for Douglas Road Productions alongside Gub Neal, Edward Barlow and Mona Qureshi. Kibwe Tavares is directing, while Carol Harding is the producer.
Then there’s Superhoe, which is based on Nicôle Lecky’s one-woman Royal Court theatre show and follows “a wannabe singer and rapper who is thrown out of her family home and moves in with a party-girl who introduces her to a world of social media influencing and sex work.” The six-part series “is told in part through songs and is billed as a portrayal of a fierce working-class girl and her struggle to navigate the modern world.”