Five Days: Series 2 - Preview

Suranne Jones (Coronation Street) will lead the cast in a second series of Gwyneth Hughes' drama serial Five Days on BBC One.

> Take a look at our Series 2 episode guide.


What's the story for Series 2?

A tiny newborn baby is abandoned in the toilets of a Yorkshire hospital. At the same time, the Trans-Pennine commuter train is halted by a suicidal jumper. Are they connected?

From this moment on, the lives of those onboard the train and in the hospital will be changed irrevocably, not least for DC Laurie Franklin (Suranne Jones), off-duty that day but travelling on the train with her mum (Anne Reid), who is recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Laurie likes tying up loose ends. And if she can prove a connection between the body and the baby she will be happy. But things never turn out quite the way we expect. Who is the baby's mother? And who is the jumper? And was it just a simple case of suicide – or was it really a murder?

What should we expect?

"I wanted to write something which featured police officers as they are, as human beings with their own preoccupations and their own humour," says writer Gwyneth Hughes. "My father was a uniformed constable in the Metropolitan Police and I rarely see any cops on the telly that I recognise!

"But, although we see a lot of coppers in Five Days, it's not at heart a crime series – it's a multi-layered mystery and all the characters have a part to play in unravelling the puzzle. The format helps here because it challenges the audience to keep up with an investigation which is jumping ahead all the time.

"The inspiration for the second series of Five Days came from lots of ideas I was having about our national identity in modern Britain. I wanted to write about Yorkshire because that's where I live and it's the community I know and love. A lot of Muslims live here and I wanted to write about their lives, too.

"I wanted Muslim characters living richer, fuller lives with issues and concerns that we all face – for example my couple unable to have children. Though I didn't want to avoid the problem of violent extremism, I did want to see it from inside their family experience."

Who's in it?

The cast features: Suranne Jones as PC Laurie Franklin; David Morrissey as DI Mal Craig, Anne Reid as Jen, Laurie's mum; Bernard Hill as Gerard Hopkirk; Hugo Speer as Superintendent Jim Carpenter; Derek Riddell as Nick Durden; Nina Sosanya as Colly Trent; Steve Evets as Pat Dowling; Ashley Walters as Jamal Matthews; Shaun Dooley as SGT Don Parker; Matthew McNulty as Danny Preston; Navin Chowdhry as DC Bilal Choudry; Shivani Ghai as Nusrat Preston; Sacha Dhawan as Khalil Akram; Cornell John as Didi Mputu; Aaron Neil as Ibra Akram; Philip Arditti as Dr Adel Haydar; Kerry Condon as Sister Siobhan Doole; and Chris Fountain as PC Paul Tait.

When will it air?

The series is currently in production for transmission on BBC One in 2010.


> Buy Series 1 on DVD.

> Read our review of Series 1.