The Beast Must Die

CUSH JUMBO AND JARED HARRIS star in a tense revenge thriller

GET READY FOR TWISTS and turns aplenty in Britbox’s powerful new drama The Beast Must Die, airing from Thursday 27 May.

The five-part series, which will begin with a double bill before airing weekly, is a modern-day adaptation of the 1938 novel by Nicholas Blake, the pen name of Cecil Day-lewis. Set on the Isle of Wight, it centres on bereaved mother Frances Cairns (Cush Jumbo), who is hell-bent on tracking down George Rattery (Jared Harris), the man she believes to be responsible for killing her six-year-old son in a hit-and-run. As she infiltrates George’s life and family, can she exact a devastating revenge?

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Meanwhile, as shrewd but troubled Detective Strangeways (Billy Howle) becomes involved, he has to ensure that justice is served...

Geraldine James, Nathaniel Parker, Maeve Dermody and

Mia Tomlinson also star, alongside Barney Sayburn.

‘These characters are trapped on this island. It is epic in its scale of what quite an ordinary person goes through to do really extraordinary things,’ says Jumbo. ‘This script is one of the most intricate, forensic scripts I’ve ever worked with. It felt Shakespearean. I was pushed to my very limit.’

‘In the book, Cush’s character is actually male. I was personally much more interested in that character as a woman,’ adds writer Gaby Chiappe, who has adapted the series. ‘The mechanics about forensics change. But what’s happening internally to people, that journey is still the same.’