PREVIEW: The Serpent, BBC One

BBC reveal more information on new eight-part series.

Tahar Rahim, Jenna Coleman, Billy Howle and Ellie Bamber star in The Serpent, a new eight-part drama for BBC One produced by Mammoth Screen.

Inspired by real events, The Serpent tells the remarkable story of how Charles Sobhraj (Rahim) was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol's most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.

When Herman Knippenberg (Howle), a junior diplomat at the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok, unwittingly walked into Sobhraj’s intricate web of crime, he set off an extraordinary chain of events that saw Knippenberg seek to bring Sobhraj to justice for his terrible crimes.

The Serpent begins New Year's Day at 9pm on BBC One and continues Sundays at 9pm.