The BBC has released the first trailer for Waiting For The Out, a new six-part series adapted from Andy West’s memoir The Life Inside, from the multi-award-winning writer Dennis Kelly (Together, Utopia, Matilda The Musical).
The series will begin on Saturday 3rd January, with all episodes on BBC iPlayer from 6am and the first episode airing on BBC One at 9:30pm that evening.
The series is produced by SISTER (Black Doves, This Is Going to Hurt, Chernobyl) with filming in and around Liverpool wrapping earlier this year.
The trailer shows BAFTA nominated Josh Finan (The Responder) as the character of Dan, a philosopher who begins teaching a class of men in prison. The newly released trailer introduces Dan’s classes, which see him lead philosophical discussions about dominance, freedom, luck and other topics that gain new meaning when seen through the prisoners’ eyes.
However, through his work, Dan begins to dig deeper into his own past – growing up with a father (Gerard Kearns) who ended up in prison, as did his brother Lee (Stephen Wight) and uncle Frank (Phil Daniels). Dan’s life has taken him down a different path and his time working in prison begins to make him worry, obsessively, that he belongs behind bars just like his father. As Dan’s personal crisis deepens his actions begin to threaten both his own future and his family’s.
Also starring in the series are Samantha Spiro (Sex Education) who plays Dan’s mother, alongside Alex Ferns (Andor), Francis Lovehall (A Thousand Blows), Josef Altin (Top Boy), Steven Meo (House of the Dragon), Ric Renton (One Off), Tom Moutchi (Gladiator II), Nima Taleghani (Heartstopper), Sule Rimi (The Day of the Jackal) and Charlie Rix (Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), who each play the prisoners that attend Dan’s classes. Rounding out the cast is Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo (Rain Dogs), Sophia Brown (Witcher: Blood Origin), Neal Barry (Rain Dogs), and Jude Mack (Such Brave Girls). Characters in the series have been fictionalised.
Waiting For The Out was commissioned by Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama. The series is written by Dennis Kelly, with Levi David Addai (Damilola, Our Loved Boy) and Ric Renton (One Off) joining the writing team. The series is directed by Jeanette Nordahl (The Responder) and Ben Palmer (Douglas is Cancelled), with Louise Sutton (Black Mirror) and Ken Horn (Line of Duty) serving as producers. The executive producers are Dennis Kelly, Jane Featherstone (Black Doves, This is Going to Hurt), Chris Fry (Coldwater, Black Doves), Katie Carpenter (Kaos, Landscapers) and Andy West for SISTER, and Tanya Qureshi for the BBC. The project is backed by BBC Studios, who will handle global sales.
Jon Creamer
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