Mystery town
Wunmi Mosaku is a cop caught up in a series of strange events
Passenger
Sunday & Monday, 9pm, ITV1 (box set, ITVX)
Actor Andrew Buchan has been a familiar face on our screens for many years, with roles in Garrow’s Law and Broadchurch. But this week, he steps behind the camera to bring us his first TV screenplay.
In ITV1 thriller Passenger, Wunmi Mosaku plays a detective investigating a series of strange events in the fictional northern town of Chadder Vale.
The six-part story begins when a local girl goes missing. Katie Wells (Rowan Robinson) was last seen when she got out of her car on an icy woodland lane, before disappearing.
It’s up to local detective Riya Ajunwa (Mosaku) to find out what’s happened, but she is shocked when Katie returns the next day as if nothing has happened.
DARK TURN
‘There’s something not right about Chadder Vale,’ says Mosaku, who won a BAFTA in 2017 for Damilola, Our Loved
Boy. ‘Fear is a big theme of the show – fear of the unknown and fear of the outsider.’
Katie’s brief disappearance triggers a series of shocking events in the community – and Riya relishes being at the centre of the mystery.
‘Riya’s been in the town for about five years,’ explains Mosaku. ‘She worked for the Met Police, but came to Chadder with her ex-husband to be close to his ill mum. Now he’s gone and she’s looking after his mum! Riya likes being a big fish in a small pond, but she misses London.’
As events spiral, the locals start to blame their bad luck on a fracking site and its manager, Jim Bracknell (David Threlfall). Or is Katie’s father, Eddie (Barry Sloane), who was released from prison the day she disappeared, responsible for the strange happenings? Mosaku says it’s a project she wanted to be involved in since Buchan asked her to read his first draft.
‘Andy and I have known each other for a long time,’ says the 37-year-old. ‘He asked me to read the first episode and after that, I just had to know how it ended!’