Martin Clunes is to star in a new six-part drama about county lines drug dealers.
Martin Clunes is playing a farmer battling drug dealers in new ITV show Out There
The 'Doc Martin' star is to play the lead role in ITV's 'Out There' starring as farmer Nathan Williams who is "confronted with dark forces seeping into his rural community" as gangs take over the countryside to move money and drugs out of cities with his teenage son being swept up in the chaos.
The show reunites Clunes with his 'Manhunt' director Marc Evans writer Ed Whitmore and the actor is thrilled to be taking on the new role, saying: "I’m very happy to be working with Marc Evans and Ed Whitmore again after the success of Manhunt. Out There couldn’t be more different from 'Doc Martin'. It’s pretty dark, but definitely a story worth telling."
ITV’s Head of Drama Polly Hill added: "'Out There' is a brilliantly compelling drama, from the team behind 'Manhunt', where county lines become very real for a father and son already dealing with the modern challenges of running a farm. Martin Clunes is wonderful as Nathan, in a drama full of surprises, as he tries to navigate the best way to save his son, in a world he doesn’t understand."
Whitmore - who is acting as both writer and executive producer on the show - explained he wanted to lift the lid on a particularly nasty side of drug gangs. He said: "County lines is a particularly vicious and ruthless wave of drug dealing that uses fear and violence to coerce, often vulnerable, young people into working as runners and dealers. It has become a serious and rapidly increasing problem across the whole of the UK, so it felt like an important and timely story to tell.
"I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of things being hidden in plain sight and the way in which different social worlds can co-exist cheek-by-jowl until, one day, they collide. The fundamental premise of 'Out There' - a widowed farmer who discovers that his son has fallen foul of county lines - immediately spoke to me as a story I wanted to tell."
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