Game of BONES

Conleth Hill is a rural cop investigating the hocking discovery of human remains

NEW CRIME DRAMA

Holding

Monday, ITV HD, 9pm

Game of Thrones star Conleth Hill swaps the sprawling metropolis of King’s Landing for an Irish rural community in ITV’s darkly comic murder mystery Holding.

Hill, who played Lord Varys in Sky Atlantic’s fantasy saga, stars as Sergeant PJ Collins, a gentle outsider who fills his days with comfort food and half-hearted police work in Duneen, West Cork.

However, when the bones of long-lost local Tommy Burke are discovered on a building site, PJ is catapulted into the centre of a murder enquiry and called upon to solve a serious crime for the first time in his career.

‘Everything’s just a bit mundane in PJ’s life until these bones are discovered and then suddenly he’s in charge of a major murder investigation,’ says Hill, 57.

Conleth Hill and co-star Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones

The four-parter is based on the bestselling novel by chat-show host Graham Norton, who grew up just a few miles down the road from Duneen in County Cork.

‘It’s called Holding because everyone in the story is holding on to things,’ says Hill. ‘It’s a really interesting ensemble tale, in which everyone has their problems.’