Suspect | Preview (Channel 4)
James Nesbitt, Joely Richardson, Richard E. Grant, Anne-Marie Duff, Antonia Thomas, Niamh Algar, Sacha Dhawan, Sam Heughan and Ben Miller star in Channel 4’s thrilling new drama, Suspect.
The adaptation of Danish series Forhøret, features a prestigious cast of the UK’s best acting talent: James Nesbitt, Joely Richardson, Anne-Marie Duff, Richard E. Grant, Ben Miller, Niamh Algar, Antonia Thomas, Sacha Dhawan, Sam Heughan and Imogen King.
When veteran detective, Danny Frater (played by James Nesbitt), turns up at a hospital mortuary for what he thinks is a routine ID check on a young woman’s body, he gets a devastating shock; the corpse turns out to be his estranged daughter, Christina (played by Imogen King).
Danny is traumatized by the news that according to the post-mortem report, she’s taken her own life. Danny and Christina had a complicated father-daughter relationship in recent years, but he refuses to accept that she would have ended her own life. He sets out on a mission for the truth, retracing her last days and hours, in an agonising crusade to discover what really happened to his only child.
Through a series of intense exchanges with those closest to Christina – her partner, Nicola (played by Niamh Algar), her best friend, Maia (played Antonia Thomas), her business partner, Jaisal (played by Sacha Dhawan), her godfather, Ryan (played by Sam Heughan), her mentor, Harry (played by Richard E. Grant) and finally her mother, Susannah and Danny’s ex-wife (played by Anne-Marie Duff) – Danny learns about his daughter’s descent into delinquency.
He is forced to confront his own failings as a father whilst struggling to make sense of a mass of contradictory testimony and circumstantial evidence, and he must decide who, if anyone, is responsible for Christina’s death and what he’s going to do about it.
On working with the other cast members, James Nesbitt said: “The calibre of the actors is amazing and they came so prepared. They were also incredibly supportive and protective of me, I think instinctively, because they knew I was taking on a fairly big responsibility. It was a beautifully collaborative experience.”
He added: “I could relate to Danny, with his flaws, vulnerabilities and the devastating situation he faces, from the very first moment I picked up the script. Each episode of Suspect is an intensely theatrical double-hander, a psychological battle of wits between Danny and another character who may know something about his daughter's untimely death.”
Suspect begins Sunday 19th June at 9pm on Channel 4.