Crime of the CENTURIES

STEPHEN GRAHAM introduces his murder mystery set over four timelines

- REBECCA MAHONEY

BODIES 
FROM THU 19 OCTOBER, NETFLIX DRAMA

Ever think that crime dramas can feel a bit samey? Well, new Netflix thriller Bodies is just that – but with a unique, mind-boggling, time-bending twist!

Based on Si Spencer’s 2015 graphic novel, the eight-part series is set in four different eras – 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053 – when a corpse bearing identical injuries and a strange tattoo keeps mysteriously reappearing in Whitechapel in east London.

The detectives on the case in each time period are baffled by the unidentifiable male, but as their parallel investigations begin to unravel a conspiracy spanning more than 160 years, all clues lead to an enigmatic figure known as Elias Mannix (played by Stephen Graham)…

‘Mannix was abandoned as a child and left to fend for himself,’ says Boiling Point star Stephen, 50. ‘He was taken in by a family and showed some kind of an understanding of what it is to be loved. But then he becomes the architect of a twisted, utopian society. It sounds mad, doesn’t it? But it’s a beautiful madness!’

Here, the stars who play the four detectives in the drama – created by No Offence writer Paul Tomalin – tell us more…

1890 DETECTIVE DI ALFRED HILLINGHEAD 

Overachieving DI Alfred Hillinghead (Poldark star Kyle Soller) discovers the body of an unidentified male in Victorian-era Whitechapel, when Jack the Ripper is still at large and fear fills the streets.