TV sleuth is back on her patch as filming of new series of ITV’s Vera begins

CREWS SPOTTED AROUND THE REGION

We’ll have to wait until the release date to find out what Vera will be tasked with this time

ON her way to cracking another whodunnit, TV favourite DCI Vera Stanhope is caught filming the next series of Vera.

Shooting for series nine of the popular ITV drama has brought Brenda Blethyn back to Northumberland to portray the straight-talking crimesolver.

She was spied in Vera’s trademark hat and mac by Steve Miller, who snapped these images of the crew filming on the beach at Alnmouth.

Vera’s last TV outing, the eighth series of the show first broadcast in 2011, saw her investigate a burnt body found in an abattoir; the brutal murder of a mum-of-two; a suspicious car crash; and the death of a teenager.

It was revealed in January that ITV had commissioned a ninth series of the show, which is based on novels by Ann Cleeves and stars staff from the fictional Northumberland and City Police. We’ll have to wait until the release date – rumoured to be early next year – to find out what Vera will be tasked with investigating this time. But she’s already been spotted filming in Sunderland, as well as by the coast in Alnmouth. Actor Brenda Blethyn has spoken in the past of her love of the region’s landscapes. “It’s amazing,” she said ahead of the release of series seven. “The seascapes and landscapes are very much a character of the piece.”