Waiting For The Out | Preview (BBC One)

New six-part series based on Andy West’s acclaimed memoir The Life Inside, from the multi-award-winning writer Dennis Kelly (Together, Utopia, Matilda The Musical). The series is produced by award-winning SISTER (Black Doves, This Is Going to Hurt, Chernobyl) with filming in and around Liverpool wrapping earlier this year.  

Josh Finan (The Responder) leads the cast as Dan, a philosopher who begins teaching a class of men in prison. The first look pictures introduce Dan’s classes, which see him lead philosophical discussions about dominance, freedom, luck and other topics that gain new meaning when seen through the prisoners’ eyes.  

Through his work, Dan begins to dig deeper into his own past - growing up with an abusive father (Gerard Kearns) who ended up in prison, as did his brother Lee (Stephen Wight) and uncle Frank (Phil Daniels), who are each seen in the first look pictures alongside Samantha Spiro who stars as Dan’s mother.

Dan’s life has taken him down a different path, but his time working in prison begins to make him worry, obsessively, that he belongs behind bars just like his father. As Dan’s personal crisis deepens his actions begin to threaten both his own future and his family’s.

Also cast are prisoners Dris (Francis Lovehall), Greg (Josef Altin), Macca (Steven Meo), Wallace (Ric Renton), Junior (Tom Moutchi), Samson (Sule Rimi) and Zach (Charlie Rix), who each attend Dan’s classes. Rounding out the cast is Alex Ferns (Andor), Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo (Rain Dogs), Nima Taleghani (Heartstopper), Sophia Brown (Witcher: Blood Origin), Neal Barry (Rain Dogs), and Jude Mack (Such Brave Girls). 

Episode 1: It’s Dan’s first day teaching philosophy in a men’s prison. The lesson soon unravels as he realises he’s underestimated his audience – and the weight of his own past. Fixating on small details, Dan loses control of the class, risks his chance to become a father and breaks an important promise to Jess. When a familiar face resurfaces, Dan’s forced to confront someone he thought he’d left behind.

Andy West, executive producer and author of The Life Inside, says: “I’m so thankful to the writers, directors, producers and everyone involved in adapting The Life Inside. They have brought extraordinary creative and moral imagination to the stories in the book. We all hope to make a series that goes beyond the cliches about prisons and the families inside them and that touches people either side of the wall.”

Waiting For The Out begins Saturday 3rd January at 9:30pm on BBC One.