Brilliant BBC dramas we can't wait to watch

Release date: TBC

Fans of the BBC's smash hit 2016 adaptation of John le Carré's The Night Manager will be thrilled to hear that two new seasons are in the pipeline, as confirmed by Deadline.

Tom Hiddleston is set to reprise his role as Jonathan Pine in the hugely popular thriller, which will air on the BBC and Amazon Prime. The original series featured an all-star cast, including Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman, Tom Hollander and Elizabeth Debicki.

The new series will pick up eight years after the first season's dramatic conclusion, and filming is set to start later this year. We can't wait for this.

Release date: 'Later this year'

Based on the novel by Jordan Tannahill, who has also written the adaption, The Listeners stars Rebecca Hall (The Town, Vicky Christine Barcelona)as Claire, a popular English teacher who begins to hear a low humming sound that no one else around her can hear.

Slowly but surely, this seemingly innocuous noise upsets the balance of her life, increasing tension with her husband and daughter. But despite seeing multiple doctors, no obvious source or medical cause can be found. Claire eventually connects with a disparate group of neighbours led by charismatic couple Jo and Omar, who claim they can also hear 'The Hum' and believe it may be a gift, heard only by a 'chosen few'.

The BBC says: "Enigmatic, provocative, and haunting, The Listeners explores the seduction of the wild and unknowable, the human search for the transcendent, the rise of conspiracy culture in the West, and the desire for community and connection in our increasingly polarised times."

Release date: Spring 2024

Michelle Dockery stars alongside Nicholas Pinnock (Marcella) and David Dawson (My Policeman, The Last Kingdom) in This Town, the new drama from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. The six-part series follows an extended family and four young people with a love for ska and two-tone music, which was popular in Coventry and Birmingham in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Knight says: "This is a project very close to my heart. It’s about an era I lived through and know well and it involves characters who I feel I grew up with. It’s a love letter to Birmingham and Coventry but I hope people from all over the world will relate to it."

Release date: Early 2024

This upcoming real-time thriller about the hacking of a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London stars Alexandra Roach and Joe Cole in the lead roles.

The BBC says: "Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain overnight service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?

"Alexandra plays Abby Aysgarth, the Acting Technical Director at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, who’s finally about to take a well-earned holiday when she receives a phone call that will change everything – the UK railway network is under attack. Joe Cole plays Joe Roag, an off-duty cop onboard and hoping for a quiet night. However, over the next six rollercoaster hours, Joe’s about to get anything but, as he and Abby battle both their own distrust and the unpredictable behaviour of the person or persons now in control, desperate to try and stop the Heart of Britain from reaching the end of the line, in more ways than one…"

Release date: TBC

The BBC has released a first look image of Jenna Coleman starring in upcoming drama The Jetty.

Jenna Coleman will play rookie detective Ember Manning in The Jetty, a new thriller coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The four-part series is described as a "coming-of-age-story" as well as a detective thriller.

The BBC says: "A fire tears through a holiday home in a scenic Lancashire lake town. Detective Ember Manning must work out how it connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls. But as Ember gets close to the truth, it threatens to destroy her life – forcing her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about her past, present and the town she’s always called home.

"As much a coming-of-age story as a detective thriller, The Jetty asks big questions about sexual morality, identity and memory, in the places that Me Too has left behind."

Release date: TBC

Filming has now started on David Mitchell's new six-part detective drama Ludwig – and it promises to reinvent the genre, as a "'case-of-the-week' crime comedy-drama", according to the BBC.

The BBC says: "When John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor’s (David Mitchell) identical twin, James, disappears off the face of the earth, John takes over his brother’s identity in a quest to discover his whereabouts. John has never married, never had a family and never really ventured further than his own front door. Without a computer, mobile phone or even a television, he lives in quiet solitude, designing puzzles for a living, under the nom-de-plume of ‘Ludwig’.

"However, filling the shoes of your identical twin is one thing - when your twin also happens to be a successful DCI leading Cambridge’s busy inner-city major crimes team the stakes are much higher. John may be a master of all things cryptic, but can he crack the biggest puzzle of his life?"

Joining Mitchell in the new BBC One show will be Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland, Line of Duty), as Lucy Betts-Taylor, John’s sister-in-law and wife of his missing brother James.

Release date: TBC

First look images from upcoming drama Moonflower Murders, which is based on Anthony Horowitz's bestselling novel of the same name.

The sequel to 2023's Magpie Murders, the six-part series will star Lesley Manville and Timothy McMullan in their lead roles as book editor turned sleuth Susan Ryeland and acclaimed literary detective Atticus Pünd.

The BBC says: "Susan has left publishing and is living in Crete with her long-time boyfriend, Andreas. But her idyll is disturbed by the shadow of a murder committed at a British country hotel eight years ago. Alan Conway visited the hotel and wrote a novel based on what happened there. Cecily Treherne, the young woman who helps run the hotel, read the book and believed the wrong man had been arrested. Now she has disappeared. Can Susan uncover the secret hidden in the book and find Cecily before it is too late?"

Release date: TBC

Starring David Morrissey and Sex Education's Aimee Lou Wood, this new BBC series is described as a "classic odd couple comedy about two funny, deeply flawed characters who just happen to be father and daughter".

From the team behind The Inbetweeners, the next six-part series promises to be comedy gold.

The BBC says: "The show follows Gemma (Aimee Lou Wood), who lives for the weekend when she can get blasted and party hard in Stockport, Manchester. But after joining the mile high club with a random hook-up on her way back from a holiday to Portugal, she's pregnant, and it couldn't come at a worse time.

"The only person Gemma has left in her life is her dad Malcolm (David Morrissey), who is kind hearted but useless – he can't load a washing machine, boil an egg or change the Wi-Fi password. Malcolm is suffering from the collapse of his family and living in a bedsit for divorced men.

"Which is how Gemma and her dad end up living in Gemma's flat. She needs support at a critical time in a woman's life, he needs help microwaving rice without it exploding."

Release date: TBC

Granite Harbour will return for a second three-part series filming in Aberdeen and locations across Scotland.

Centring on the story of RMP Sergeant Davis Lindo (Romario Simpson) who arrived in Aberdeen as a new recruit to Police Scotland working alongside DS Lara ‘Bart’ Bartlett (Hannah Donaldson), the first series of Granite Harbour was a BBC iPlayer favourite in 2022 with 7.6million streams.

The second series will see Lindo and Bart called to the harbour to investigate the origins of a new crime wave sweeping the city, and will be written by Rob Fraser (River City, Tin Star), Ciara Conway (River City, Holby City) and Writers Guild of Great Britain award-winner Jillian Mannion (River City, Death in Paradise).

Release date: TBC

BAFTA-winning writer Sally Wainwright (pictured here with Gentleman Jack star Suranne Jones) is returning to the BBC with a new series, Hot Flush.

The six-part drama follows the lives of five women who come together to form a rock band for a talent show. Exploring their demanding jobs, relationships with their grown-up children, husbands and dependent parents, and their journey with menopause, the band becomes a catalyst for change in the women's lives.

The Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack writer said in a statement: "I've been wanting to write a series like this for a long time. It's a celebration of women of a certain age, and all the life-stuff they suddenly find themselves negotiating/dealing with. The show is also my own personal homage to Rock Follies of '77, and the feisty Little Ladies who woke me up to what I wanted to do with my life when I was 13."

There's no word yet on when the series will be released on BBC One, so watch this space...

Release date: TBC

American Scottish author, Douglas Stuart (pictured), won the 2020 Booker Prizer award in 2020 with his gritty novel, Shuggie Bain.

The book follow Shuggie Bain who lives on a Glaswegian council estate in the 1980s, where he struggles to fit in, and his mother has a similar struggle with alcholism, so much so that Shuggie starts to care for her. The story was inspired by Stuart's own life, growing up in Glasgow during the Thatcher years.

There's yet to be an announcement on the cast, but we do know it will be filmed in Scotland.

Release date: TBC

BBC crime drama Sherwood will return for a second series.

The drama was inspired by two real-life Nottinghamshire murders and the subsequent man hunt of Robert Boyer and Terry Rodgers in 2004.

"I've been so deeply moved by the response to Sherwood," writer James Graham said in a statement. "These stories come from my home, and I want to specifically express gratitude to my community for whom I know these subjects can be difficult, but – I hope – important ones to explore.

"The East Midlands and former Red Wall areas like it are never just one thing, politically or culturally, and it's been the honour of my life to give voice and character to a place I love. It's a county of great stories and legends, past and present, and I can't wait to show audiences more."

The series stars Lesley Manville, Liar's Joanne Froggatt, David Morrissey, Robert Glenister, Philip Jackson, and Lorraine Ashbourne and — despite being based on true events — is a fictional dramatic portrayal.

Release date: TBC

Anna Maxwell is set to start in new BBC drama series A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. The six-part series was wrapped filming in the South West of England at the end of 2023, and will air on BBC Three and iPlayer. Anna will be joined by Gary Beadle, Mathew Baynton, Emma Myers and Zain Iqbal.

The BBC says: "Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh. Case closed. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. But smart and single-minded Pip Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure and she’s determined to prove it. And if Sal Singh isn’t a murderer and the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?"

Release date: TBC

Another BBC production is in the works with the award-winning creator of I May Destroy You, Michael Coel.

While we don't have any specific details just yet, Piers Wenger, head of BBC drama commissioning, has said that another project is being planned with the "unequalled" star and that "more news about that to follow in due course".

Wenger revealed more details in an interview with Deadline, sharing what Coel's upcoming BBC series might entail and links it might have to her previous projects:

"It’s truly in Michaela’s head and it’s not for me to second guess that too much at this point. It’s at relatively early stages, but I wanted to let the fans of I May Destroy You know that there is a new show coming along."

Adding: "What relationship that show will have with the original series, [is for Michaela to decide]. There’s a relationship between Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You. There’s a through line to her thinking. I suspect there may be elements [of I May Destroy You] but it’s really too early to say anything specific."

We could not be more excited to see what the star has in store for us next...