BBC and HBO tackle crucial Five Days in gripping investigation

Category: TV Drama; BBC ONE

Date: 08.08.2006

Filming has begun on taut crime thriller Five Days, a BBC drama production in association with HBO for BBC ONE.

Written by Gwyneth Hughes (Cherished), Five Days is an intricate thriller which tracks five days following the abduction of an appealing and photogenic young mother, Leanne.

This five-part drama serial boasts an impressive ensemble cast which includes Nikki Amuka-Bird (The Canterbury Tales, Line of Beauty), Hugh Bonneville (Daniel Deronda, Tsunami:The Aftermath, Iris), Charlie Creed-Miles (Charles II, King Arthur), Phil Davis (Bleak House, North Square), Patrick Malahide (Sahara, The Singing Detective), Academy award nominee Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds,) David Oyelowo (Spooks, Shoot The Messenger), Sarah Smart (At Home With the Braithwaites, Sparkhouse), Penelope Wilton (The History Boys, Doctor Who, Wives and Daughters) and Edward Woodward (The Equaliser).

The story begins one, hot summer day when Leanne (Christine Tremarco) is taking her two young children to visit her grandfather.

She stops to buy flowers at a motorway lay-by but then inexplicably vanishes, leaving her two small children waiting for her in her car, lost and far from home.

They set off to find her only to go missing themselves.

Their ordeal is captured on CCTV cameras and before long the family's heart-stopping trauma is not only a complex police investigation but a major news story.

As each episode unravels it becomes clear that nobody is quite as they seem.

Not Leanne's grieving husband Matthew (David Oyelowo) who finds himself under suspicion.

Not the laconic detective Barclay (Hugh Bonneville), nor his cynical sergeant Foster (Janet McTeer).

Not Leanne's parents, Barbara (Penelope Wilton) and John (Patrick Malahide) and not Sarah (Sarah Smart), a stranger who is drawn into both the investigation and the family.

Producer Paul Rutman (The Virgin Queen) says: "Five Days is a gripping, multi-stranded story about the kind of fascinating crime which holds the front pages of our national newspapers and which terrifies and obsesses us in a compulsion to know more."

Jane Tranter, BBC Controller, Drama Commissioning, said: "It is a privilege to be making such a major piece of drama from the brilliant Gwyneth Hughes, and we are delighted to be collaborating once again with HBO, continuing our strong creative relationship which has seen us working together on many projects, most recently Tsunami: The Aftermath and Rome."

Otto Bathurst (Hustle) and Simon Curtis (David Copperfield, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky) will direct.

Executive producers are Hilary Salmon and Simon Curtis for BBC and Kary Antholis for HBO.