Game Of Thrones star Richard Dormer leads the cast for new BBC series The Watch, inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
The 49-year-old actor, known recently for playing Beric Dondarrion in the HBO fantasy series, will play Sam Vimes in the new eight-part comedy thriller.
Set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, the series is inspired by the City Watch subset of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
Alongside Dormer, the show will star Adam Hugill (World On Fire), Jo Eaton-Kent (Don’t Forget The Driver), Marama Carlett (Sick Note), Lara Rossi (Cheat), and Sam Adewunmi (The Last Tree).
A synopsis for the show reads: ‘Set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, where crime has been legalised, The Watch is a uniquely anarchic and thrillingly entertaining police procedural.
‘The character-driven comedy centres on a group of misfit cops as they rise up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe.’
Richard Dormer’s character is described as Captain Of The Watch, who is disempowered by a broken society that’s reduced his department’s jurisdiction to almost nothing.
Jo Eaton Kent plays the ‘ingenious non-binary forensics expert’ Constable Cheery, while Adam Hugill plays Constable Carrot who is a human raised by dwarfs.
Marama Carlett is the mysterious Corporal Angua who looks over Carrot’s training. Lara Rossi is Lady Sybil Ramkin, the last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility trying to fix the city’s wrongs with chaotic vigilantism.
Sam Adewunmi is Carcer Dun, who is out to take control of the city and enact terrible revenge on those who have wronged him.
Craig Viverios will direct the new series, who previously helmed BBC dramas like Rillington Place and the 2015 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
Speaking about joining the series, Richard Dormer said: ‘I’m so thrilled to be part of this brilliant madness and mayhem!
‘I was immediately drawn to the multitude of layers to Sam Vimes, and I find the dynamic between him and his band of disenfranchised comrades very compelling.’
The Watch starts filming in South Africa on 30 September.
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