Twin Peaks across pond the
Although this thriller is being likened to the cult 90s classic, writes Tim Oglethorpe, Passenger is its own beast
Something wicked lurks in the back of a bread lorry. A young woman goes missing for 24 hours and won’t say what happened to her. An inexplicable crack appears across a road, and snow falls in summer. A huge stag is found horribly mutilated, and pilgrims flock to touch a tree. Welcome to the weird world of Chadder Vale, the fictional setting for UTV’s new six-part dark comedy-thriller Passenger. Starring Shameless’s David Threlfall, The Bay’s Daniel Ryan and Loki’s Wunmi Mosaku, the show has drawn comparisons with surreal 90s US classic Twin Peaks, a mystery set in a town where strange events occur. Andrew Buchan, who starred in The Crown and Broadchurch, is pleased his TV scriptwriting debut is being likened to such an iconic show, but he stresses that Passenger is its own beast.
‘It’s inspired by the north of England,’ he says. ‘There’s a rich vein of humour running through a lot of northern towns. I thought if I could write about a small, tight-knit community and use extreme events to detonate that humour, it might be interesting.’
Wunmi Mosaku’s Riya Ajunwa is a police officer who misses her old job with the Met in London and is desperate for a big case. ‘She thinks she’s found it when Katie
Wells goes missing the day her dad is released from prison,’ says Wunmi. ‘Katie reappears, but Riya knows that something is very wrong. Something weird happens with Katie’s car and this huge crack appears in the road, not to mention the
mutilated stag. Everything’s just… off!’
Daniel Ryan plays Derek Jackson, who runs the local bread factory. ‘Derek appears to be an affable boss, but you get a glimpse of his darker side in the first episode,’ says Dan. ‘He’s involved in transporting whatever is in the bread lorry, and he’s horrified when the secret scheme starts to unravel. He gets more frightened as the series goes on, and deeper and deeper into the mess.’
The series was filmed around West Yorkshire, and an old department store doubled as the factory. ‘We spent two weeks in that place and we were breathing in flour the entire time,’ laughs Dan.
But Andrew Buchan is proud of his cast. ‘Another writer said to me, “Don’t be surprised if it turns out nothing like you imagined,”’ he says.
‘But it’s better than I hoped. The cast have been magnificent and I feel very proud of
THE CAST HAVE BEEN MAGNIFICENT AND I FEEL VERY PROUD OF PASSENGER