BBC to produce a new season of the hit drama "Showtrial"

The BBC has announced the return of the hit drama "Showtrial." Made by World Productions for BBC One and iPlayer, the fictional drama is written and created by Ben Richards."We're so excited to once again join forces with Ben Richards and World Productions to bring a new unmissable Showtrial to BBC One and iPlayer," Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, said. "With Adeel, Nathalie, and Michael leading the cast, and a brand new central mystery to be played out in front of the nation, Showtrial will have viewers hooked from the start."

"Showtrial" is produced with support from Northern Ireland Screen, in association with ITV Studios which will also handle international distribution. The five-part series is created and written by Ben Richards, directed by Julia Ford, and produced by Ken Horn. Executive producers are Simon Heath and Emma Luffingham for World Productions (an ITV Studios company), with Nawfal Faizullah for the BBC. Filming on Showtrial begins in November in Belfast, and further casting will be announced in due course. Series one is available to stream now in full on BBC iplayer. “I am very grateful to the BBC for the opportunity to explore another sensational trial which I hope will be just as entertaining as our first outing," Showtrial creator and writer Ben Richards said. "I love writing Showtrial, and I’m honored to have a cast of such high quality to deliver it.”

The new Showtrial will star BAFTA award-winner Adeel Akhtar, Nathalie Armin, and Michael Socha, and will once again follow a contested criminal trial that divides the nation and takes place in the full glare of the media spotlight.“Ben’s sharp, timely and provocative scripts have once again attracted a stellar cast to this new season of our Showtrial anthology,"  Simon Heath, CEO, World Productions said. "I can’t wait to see how Adeel, Nathalie, and Michael bring to life Ben’s compelling triumvirate of lead characters.”

In "Showtrial," when the high-profile climate activist Marcus Calderwood is left for dead in a violent hit and run, he uses his dying moments to identify his killer, a serving policeman. But who is this unnamed ‘Officer X’? What does his own history reveal about the nature of trauma and revenge, and was Marcus’s death a careless accident or cold-blooded murder? From the victim's last breath to the jury’s final verdict, Showtrial takes us into the worlds of the charismatic and cocky officer Justin Mitchell; Sam Gill, an anxious defense solicitor with a reputation for winning lost causes; and Leila Hassoun-Kenny, aCPS lawyer leading the case against the accused. As public outrage reaches fever-pitch, Showtrial questions what happens when a trial is dominated by contentious issues and whether the truth is ever clear cut.