CURIOUSER & curiouser

WUNMI MOSAKU on investigating inexplicable crimes within a tight-knit community

- SEAN MARLAND

PASSENGER

NEW SUNDAY & MONDAY, 9PM, ITV1 THRILLER (BOX SET, ITVX)

What is going on in Chadder Vale? This is the conundrum that tenacious former Metropolitan Police cop Riya Ajunwa (Luther's Wunmi Mosaku) is determined to unravel after a series of increasingly sinister crimes rock the close-knit (fictional) Lancashire town in ITVI's new darkly comic thriller Passenger.

The screenwriting debut of actor Andrew Buchan (Better, Broadchurch), the six-part story sees Riya, who arrived in the area five years ago, searching for a crime to rejuvenate her career when, one night, a local girl, Katie Wells (A Haunting in Venice's Rowan Robinson), goes missing.

Things take a strange turn when Katie turns up, seemingly safe and sound, the next day, and no one bats an eyelid apart from Riya, who must now navigate complex conspiracies to convince everyone that something is seriously amiss.

Here, Wunmi, 37, gives TV Times her take on the tale...

How did you get involved with this project?

Andrew Buchan and I were at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] at the same time, so we've known each other a while. I bumped into him a few years ago and he told me he'd written this thing and would love me to read it, so that's how it started!