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Monday, June 24, 2019

LINE OF DUTY ON ITV CHOICE


(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.