HE HAD IT COMING: BBC ACQUIRES AUSTRALIAN COMEDY-DRAMA STARRING LYDIA WEST

The BBC has acquired He Had It Coming, an Australian comedy-drama starring Lydia West (Big Mood, It’s a Sin), for BBC iPlayer and BBC Three from FIFTH SEASON, which handles global distribution on the series.

Alongside West, Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Ahsoka: Star Wars, The Voyeurs), and ​Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets, Bombshell) star in the eight-part series which follows two women accidentally entangled in a murder mystery when their spontaneous feminist art activism is co-opted by a killer. The series also includes a special appearance from Cody Simpson (Cougar Town, Smiley Face Killers).

Lydia West plays Elise, an awkward British scholarship student who forms an unlikely alliance with fashion influencer Barbara [Liu Bordizzo]. After a series of mishaps with men, both decide to take a stand. Barbara spearheads an activist art project in the dead of night, and while drunk the girls deface a statue of the university’s male founder in the university’s quadrangle.

When the girls wake to discover that the university's star athlete [Simpson] has been murdered and displayed at the foot of their political statement, they must urgently erase all ties to the crime. With Detective Shepherd [Hewson] following the breadcrumbs they have been trying to sweep up, Barbara and Elise need to find the real culprit amid rising gender tensions on campus and a growing body count.

Nick Lee, Head of BBC Programme Acquisition, says: “He Had it Coming is a fun, pacey campus whodunnit with a vibrant poke into gender politics. It’s deliciously dark, comic and has a very bingeable vibe.”

Created and written by Gretel Vella (Totally Completely Fine, The Great) and Craig Anderson (Double The Fist), with writers Emme Hoy (Renegade Nell), Belinda King (Wellmania), Nick Coyle (Bump) and Hannah Samuel (The Heights), the series is directed by Rachel House (Mountain) and Anne Renton (The Good Doctor, The Bold Type).

He Had It Coming will be available on BBC iPlayer from Saturday 8 August and begins on BBC Three at 11:15pm Friday 15 August.