His Dark Materials star Ruth Wilson and Peaky Blinders actor Dylan McCormack are set to lead the new thriller series The Woman In The Wall, a collaboration between Showtime and the BBC.
According to Deadline, the six-episode series revolves around Wilson’s Lorna Brady, who, as a teenager, was incarcerated in one of Ireland and the Catholic church’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, where ‘fallen women’ were sent to atone for ‘sins’ such as adultery and teenage pregnancy.
Brady wakes up one morning to find a corpse in her house. She has no idea where the body came from or if she herself was responsible due to her long-suffering bouts of sleepwalking, which started during her teenage years at the Magdalene Laundries.
McCormack, meanwhile, plays the ambitious but elusive Detective Colman Akande, who is investigating Lorna for a crime seemingly unrelated to the dead woman in Lorna’s house. While Colman has rapidly risen through the ranks of the local force, he is hiding his own dark secrets.
Joe Murtagh (Calm With Horses) is behind the series, which will be directed by Harry Wootliff (True Things) and Rachna Suri (Half Bad). The Endeavour Content-backed Motive Pictures produces, with Wilson serving as an executive producer alongside Murtagh.
“Lorna Brady is a complex and fascinating character and I’m thrilled to help bring her to life,” Wilson said in a statement (via Deadline). “In The Woman in the Wall, Joe has created both an enthralling gothic thriller and a moving examination of the legacy of The Magdalene Laundries. It’s a privilege to bring this story to screens.”
In 1993, unmarked graves of 155 women were uncovered on the convent grounds of one of the laundries, which had operated in Ireland for over 200 years. This led to media revelations about the secretive institutions and a formal state apology in 2013, with a £50 million compensation scheme for survivors set up by the Irish Government.
“I hope that by making something that has the familiarity of a genre piece we are able to shed some light on the awful things that occurred within these kind of institutions and introduce this history to the wider public so that nothing like it may ever happen again,” said Murtagh.
The Woman In The Wall, TBA, Showtime
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