‘It's been BRUTAL...'

James Nesbitt on hunting for a serial killer in a new thriller from the Line of Duty team

- Victoria Wilson 

BLOODLANDS NEW SUNDAY / BBC1 / 9PM / EP 1 of 4 / DRAMA

A high-risk game of cat and mouse between a tormented detective and a fearsome assassin is at the heart of BBC1’s new contemporary crime thriller Bloodlands, starring James Nesbitt.

With Line of Duty and Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio as its executive producer, the intense four-parter is set in Belfast and sees James (Cold Feet, The Missing) play dad-of-one Tom Brannick. Now a detective chief inspector, the dogged police veteran was on the beat back when the 1998 Good Friday Agreement signalled the end of the 30 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.

We first meet Tom and his sidekick, DS Niamh McGovern (Ripper Street’s Charlene McKenna), as they are called to investigate after a car is pulled from Strangford Lough, a sea loch in County Down.

The vehicle belongs to Pat Keenan, a man with links to the IRA, who’s nowhere to be found. But Tom is rattled when a picture postcard of Belfast’s iconic Samson and Goliath cranes is discovered hidden in the wing mirror. Could this mean that a serial killer codenamed Goliath – who evaded capture during the Troubles and who is thought to have murdered Tom’s wife, Emma – has returned?

In early March 2020, just weeks before the first lockdown, TV Times visited James, 56, during filming in Belfast.