A new BBC crime drama set in Northern Ireland is set to take over our screens next week, giving any Line of Duty fans a new cop series fix.
Blue Lights follows three rookie police officers working in Belfast and was filmed on location in NI.
The six-part series is made by Two Cities Television and produced with support from Northern Ireland Screen as part of their continued partnership with the BBC.
Read more: Blue Lights creators say making show based on NI was "toughest challenge" yet
Produced by Gallagher Films, we have everything you need to know ahead of Blue Lights airing:
Who wrote Blue Lights?
The show was created and written by Northern Ireland pair Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson who wrote the 2020 drama based on The Salisbury Poisonings.
Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson previously said: “Every writer wants to explore their own place, and their own society as authentically and as honestly as they can. We feel enormously grateful to BBC drama for letting us do that with Blue Lights. And to do it with a cast boasting so much new and established talent makes it even more exciting.”
Read more about what Declan and Adam had to say here
What is Blue Lights about?
Grace (Siân Brooke), a mother of a teenage boy, has made the decision in her 40s to leave her steady job as a social worker to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Having previously worked in social care she straddles a fine line between the personal and professional. It’s the biggest gamble of her life, and just a few weeks into the job, she’s making so many mistakes that her decision no longer looks like a winning bet.
Her fellow rookies are Annie (Katherine Devlin), who struggles with the fact that her chosen path may mean having to leave everything she’s ever known behind, and Tommy (Nathan Braniff), who is desperate to prove himself, despite being disastrously inept at the practical side of frontline response policing.
All three are new police officers in their probation period with the PSNI, the odds are at least one of them isn’t going to last. The pressure is immense, but if they succumb to it, they won’t survive. Often the rookie officers don’t know the extent of the peril they are in, or who they can trust.
What’s it like to have to hide your job from neighbours, friends and even family? How do you distinguish between who needs your help and who wants you dead simply because of the uniform you wear?
Blue Lights trailer
Who is the cast of Blue Lights?
Sian Brooke - Grace Ellis
Katherine Devlin - Annie Conlon
Nathan Braniff - Tommy Foster
Martin McCann - Stevie Neil
Richard Dormer - Gerald ‘Gerry’ Cliff
Hannah McClean - Jen Robinson
Valene Kane - Angela Mackie
Jonathan Harden - David ‘Jonty’ Jonson
John Lynch - James McIntyre
Where can I watch Blue Lights?
Episode one of Blue Lights titled 'The Code' will air on BBC on Monday, March 27 at 9pm. The whole series will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer from this time.
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