BLUE LIGHTS: CASTING FOR NEW BBC POLICE DRAMA

Filming has begun in Belfast on Blue Lights, a six part original drama for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, from the writers of The Salisbury Poisonings.

Created and written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, Blue Lights follows three rookie police officers working in Belfast, a uniquely dangerous place to be a police officer.

Siân Brooke (Sherlock, Good Omens), Martin McCann (Marcella, Sentinel), Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones, Fortitude), Katherine Devlin (The Dig, Vikings) and newcomer Nathan Braniff will lead the cast alongside John Lynch (Tin Star, The Fall), Jonathan Harden (Time, Unforgotten) and Valene Kane (The Fall, Gangs of London).

Grace (Siân Brooke), a mother of a teenage boy, has made the decision in her 40’s to leave her steady job as a social worker to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Having previously worked in social care she straddles a fine line between the personal and professional. It’s the biggest gamble of her life, and just a few weeks into the job, she’s making so many mistakes that her decision no longer looks like a winning bet.

Her fellow rookies are Annie (Katherine Devlin), who struggles with the fact that her chosen path may mean having to leave everything she’s ever known behind, and Tommy (Nathan Braniff), who is desperate to prove himself, despite being disastrously inept at the practical side of frontline response policing.

All three are new police officers in their probation period with the PSNI, the odds are at least one of them isn’t going to last. The pressure is immense, but if they succumb to it, they won’t survive...

"Often the rookie officers don’t know the extent of the peril they are in, or who they can trust.

Siân Brooke says: “I am so thrilled to be playing Grace in Blue Lights. There is something incredibly special that Declan and Adam have crafted in these scripts and I was hooked from the very first page. Belfast is the beating heart of this piece and it’s a city I’ve been wanting to work in for a long time.”

Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson say: “Every writer wants to explore their own place, and their own society as authentically and as honestly as they can. We feel enormously grateful to BBC drama for letting us do that with Blue Lights. And to do it with a cast boasting so much new and established talent makes it even more exciting.”

Tommy Bulfin, BBC Drama Commissioning Editor, says: “Blue Lights explores a fascinating area we haven’t often seen before on TV and in a way that feels truly authentic...

"Declan and Adam have written it with such wit and heart that you instantly feel like you know our three rookies intimately. I’m so excited that filming has started in Belfast and look forward to seeing our excellent cast portray such brilliant characters.”

Filming took place in Belfast and the surrounding areas.