The shoot has started on the next instalment of Strike – The Ink Black Heart, the sixth (4×60) story of the BBC’s crime drama in co-production with HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery and based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling crime novels starring Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger.
Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, The Souvenir) as Cormoran Strike and Grainger (The Capture, Animals) as Robin Ellacott lead a cast including David Westhead (Enola Holmes 2, Bodyguard), Christian McKay (Rivals, Dangerous Liaisons), Emma Fielding (Sanditon, Van der Valk), Tupele Dorgu (The Full Monty, Ridley) and James Nelson-Joyce (Time,Industry) amongst others.
Ruth Sheen (Unforgotten, It’s A Sin) will return as Pat, Strike’s office manager, alongside fellow returning cast members Jack Greenlees (The Trial of Cristine Keeler, Payback) as Sam Barclay, Natasha O’Keeffe (Peaky Blinders, The Wheel of Time) as Charlotte, and Caitlin Innes Edwards (Hanna, Black Mirror: Smithereens) as Isla.
When frantic, dishevelled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.
Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this – and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.
Robin and her business partner Cormoran Strike become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches them to their limit.
Sue Tully returns to direct Strike – The Ink Black Heart, her third time working on Strike. Her credits include Strike – Troubled Blood, Too Close, Strike – Lethal White, Line of Duty, Tin Star, The A Word and The Musketeers.
Strike – The Ink Black Heart is adapted for the screen by writer Tom Edge (Vigil, You Don’t Know Me) who also adapted previous Strike instalments Troubled Blood, The Silkworm, Career of Evil and Lethal White. Jenny van der Lande (Too Close, You Don’t Know Me) is story producer and Alex Rendell returns as producer. Executive producers are J.K. Rowling (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Strike, The Casual Vacancy), Neil Blair (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Strike, The Casual Vacancy) and Ruth Kenley-Letts (Too Close, Strike, You Don’t Know Me) alongside Nick Lambon for the BBC.
HBO has North American rights and Warner Bros. is selling the show internationally.
Jon Creamer
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