DANGER Down Under

Jamie Dornan stars in an Australia-set thriller about a man who loses his memory after a menacing car chase

NEW DRAMA

The Tourist New Year’s Day & Sun, BBC1 HD, 9 pm

Driving along a lonely road in the steaming hot Australian outback, a man is pursued by a massive truck. After a nerve-jangling chase, his car crashes, but when he wakes up in the hospital, he has no memory of who he is...

So begins BBC1’s twisty, darkly comic six-part thriller The Tourist, penned by Liar and The Missing writer's Harry and Jack Williams. It sees Jamie Dornan take the lead role of the troubled crash survivor known only as The Man, who faces a fraught battle to uncover his identity.

Trying to help him is kindhearted local cop Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), while The Man also forges a connection with Luci Miller (Shalom BruneFranklin), a young woman who works in a diner. But it soon becomes clear that danger is still stalking The Man. Can he regain his memory before it’s too late?

We met up with Northern Irish actor Dornan, 39, best known for The Fall and Fifty Shades films, to find out more about the series...

How would you describe The Man?

He’s probably made a few wrong turns to find himself in the position where he’s in the outback and people are trying to kill him. The things you hear about him are shocking as the shadiness of his past catches up with him.