Great news for Strike and Robin fans – the filming of the television adaption of The Running Grave has begun and will for the first time have five episodes!
Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger will once again star as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.
Guest starring this season are John Lynch (Tin Star, The Fall) as Jonathan Wace, Keeley Forsyth (The Casual Vacancy, Happy Valley) as Mazu Wace, James Fleet (Bridgerton, The Vicar of Dibley) as Sir Colin Edensor, Fabian McCallum (The Narrow Road to the Deep North, The Witcher) as Will Edensor, and Nichola McAuliffe (Living, The English) as Shelley Heaton.
When Sir Colin and Sally Edensor approach Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, they are desperate to reconnect with their estranged son, Will. The Edensors enlist the detectives to gather evidence to discredit the Universal Humanitarian Church, a religious cult who have indoctrinated Will and siphoned off his trust fund.
Led by the charismatic Jonathan Wace, the church is shielded by a charitable façade, celebrity backers and aggressive lawyers who have silenced critics. To investigate allegations of ill-treatment and abuse, Robin goes undercover at the cult’s secluded Norfolk headquarters, Chapman Farm. At the centre of the church’s twisted mythology is the story of the Drowned Prophet, Daiyu, believed to be divinely reincarnated.
While Strike gains valuable insights from former members on the outside, Robin finds herself facing unprecedented psychological and physical duress on the inside. Solving the mystery of the Drowned Prophet’s death becomes key to the case but leads the detectives into dangerous, unchartered territory.
Series regulars Ruth Sheen, Jack Greenlees and Tupele Dorgu will be returning as Agency staff Pat Chauncey, Sam Barclay and Midge Greenstreet. Caitlin Innes Edwards and Ian Attard are also set to return as Isla and Nick Herbert. Stephen Hagan will once again appear as Ryan Murphy, and we will also see Natasha O’Keeffe as Charlotte, Ben Crompton as Shanker, and Sarah Sweeney as Lucy.
No air date has yet been announced but we can speculate that it is likely to be shown in the UK before Christmas next year.
The Running Grave is the first series to consist of five episodes. This is the first increase in the running time since 2020’s Lethal White, which was also the first of the adaptations to be directed by Sue Tully, who is once again directing. Alex Rendell is continuing as Producer, and the Executive Producers are again J.K. Rowling, Ruth Kenley-Letts and Neil Blair. Tom Edge has written the adapted screenplay.
The first adaptation, Cuckoo’s Calling, aired in August 2017, which had a run time of 172 minutes over three episodes, both The Silkworm in September 2017 and Career of Evil in August 2018 were two episodes of an hour each.
As the increasing length and complexity of the source material demanded, Lethal White, Troubled Blood and The Ink Black Heart were all four, hour-long episode adaptations.
You can read the full BBC press release here.