Paddington’s Ben Whishaw and Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire will be joining Keira Knightley (Boston Strangler) in Netflix’s spy thriller Black Doves, Variety reports. The upcoming six-part series hails from The Lazarus Project showrunner Joe Barton.
The series, which is set in London, will follow politician’s wife and mother, Helen Webb (Knightley), who is also a professional spy. Working for a secret organization called Black Doves, Helen’s life soon took an unexpected, tragic turn when her lover, Jason, is assassinated. Eager to discover who killed Jason — as well as the reason behind killing him — Helen enlists the help of her old friend, Sam Young (Whishaw), who also has his own issues to deal with.
The show is described as a story about “two old friends coming back together.” The logline reads: “Together, they set off on a mission that will lead them to uncover a vast, interconnected conspiracy. One that links the murky underworld of London to a looming geopolitical crisis — and leads them to question the cost of the moral choices they’ve made.”
Who Else Are Involved in Black Doves?
Besides Knightley, Whishaw, and Lancashire — who will be playing Black Doves’ leader, Reed — the forthcoming series also stars Andrew Buchan, Omari Douglas, Andrew Koji, Kathryn Hunter, Sam Troughton, Ella Lily Hyland, Adam Silver, Ken Nwosu, and Gabrielle Creevy.
No release date has been set yet for Black Doves, given that it is still in its early stages of development. But Barton, who wrote the show “over last year’s Christmas holidays,” told Variety that he couldn’t be more thrilled to see the show come to life.
“I started writing the scripts for this show over last year’s Christmas holidays, fuelled by turkey sandwiches and discarded bottles of cream liquor. To be now going into production with a cast and crew full of people whose work I admire so much is unbelievably exciting and I couldn’t be more thrilled to get to see this show come to life,” said Barton.
