(Martin
Compston, Vicky McClure & Adrian Dunbar)
Line
of Duty is back on ITV Choice from Tuesday, July 2,
2019, at 20h00 for a hotly-anticipated fifth series which promises to continue
delivering shocks and superb performances in equal measure.
At the start of this latest series, three
police officers are shot dead during the hijacking of a seized drugs transport
and the Anti-Corruption Unit 12 - with the acronym AC-12 - moves in to
investigate possible police collusion.
Stephen Graham (so good in last year's Little Boy Blue) joins the series as
John Corbett, the ruthless leader of an Organised Crime Group (OCG), which is
responsible for the hijacking and other serious crimes.
Meanwhile AC-12 investigators
Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), Detective Inspector Kate Fleming
(Vicky McClure) and Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) suspect
corrupt police officers of leaking information and, as the body count rises,
AC-12 realises it’s facing its most vicious adversary yet.
Says writer and showrunner, Jed Mercurio:
"In this series of Line of Duty
we enter brand new territory. What we see is criminal activity on a large scale
and we’re actually inside the planning and execution of that. So rather than
the aftermath being investigated by AC-12, we are actually with the criminals
as they commit their offences. That means that there is high jeopardy and big
action sequences, in fact more action sequences over the first few episodes of
the series than were ever done before.
And what about the choice of the central
character? "Our antagonist this season is John Corbett who heads up the
organised criminal group that is the focus of the AC-12 activity. Corbett is
our most dangerous and villainous character that we’ve ever featured as an
antagonist. He’s involved in serious criminal offences, he’s the leader of a
ruthless gang of violent criminals and I would say that he presents probably
the biggest ever challenge to AC-12. He’s played by Stephen Graham who is a
fantastic actor."
According to the UK's Metro newspaper, Line of Duty Season Five had millions of
viewers glued to their screens every Sunday night when it was shown in the UK a
few weeks ago - becoming the most watched series of the year so far.
Viewing figures released showed that a
staggering 13.2 million people tuned in to the series which attracted larger
audiences than any other programme on UK television this year. According to the
finding, on average, there were 10.6 million viewers tuning in to each episode!
Line
of Duty can be seen on ITV Choice (DStv 123) on July
2, 2019, at 20h00.