COUNSELS: FORMER MP MHAIRI BLACK JOINS CAST OF BBC LEGAL DRAMA IN FIRST TV ACTING ROLE

Former MP Mhairi Black joins the cast of new BBC high-stakes legal drama Counsels playing a police detective in her first acting role for television. Mhairi will star in four episodes of the eight-part series and starts filming next week for the BBC iPlayer and BBC One drama.

A Balloon Entertainment production, the series is co-created by Scottish writers Bryan Elsley (Skins, The Crow Road) and BBC Writers’ Drama Room graduate Gillian McCormack.

Counsels follows the lives of a group of twentysomething lawyers in Glasgow in the crucial moment when a few years out of university their careers finally become serious. Working across the legal landscape as public prosecutors, slick representatives of glossier commercial interests or the good-hearted last resort of those with nothing left to lose, each one of them is out to win.

Whether they’re colleagues jostling for a promotion, lovers trying to hold onto one another as ambitions accelerate or pure adversaries professionally and personally, now’s the time things are going to catch fire.

The lead roles are played by an ensemble cast of Brandon Grace (My Lady Jane, Hamlet Hail to the Thief), Ro Kumar (Traces S2, Accidental Death of an Anarchist), Eilidh Park (Wind of Change), George Prentice (The Pendragon Cycle), Alyth Ross (Last Light, Dirty Angels) and Rebecca Bell (Outlander: Blood of My Blood).

They are joined by an impeccable range of established talent including Michelle Gomez (Doom Patrol, The Flight Attendant), Derek Riddell (Happy Valley, Industry), Laura Haddock (What It Feels Like For A Girl, The Recruit), Daniela Nardini (This Life, Sunset Song), Michael Nardone (Traces, The Night Manager), Sally Howitt (River City, Dinosaur), Stuart Bowman (Department Q, Only Child), Neshla Caplan (The Rig, Rebus) and Stephen Purdon (River City, Sweet Sixteen).

Mhairi says: “I’m excited to be joining Counsels and look forward to getting stuck in to playing Detective Inspector Bridges. I’ve been relishing trying different things since politics, this is my first TV acting role and I really enjoyed auditioning for the part. To work on a series which is set and filmed in Glasgow is an amazing opportunity - what a brilliant show to be a part of.”

Mhairi made history at just 20, becoming the youngest MP elected to Westminster since 1832. Over nearly a decade in Parliament, she became one of the SNP’s most recognisable figures. In 2024, she debuted her acclaimed one-woman show, Politics Isn’t For Me, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her transition from MP to performer was also chronicled in a BBC documentary Mhairi Black: Being Me Again.

Counsels (8x60’) was commissioned by Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, and Louise Thornton, Head of Commissioning for BBC Scotland.