Disney+ Drops Trailer For Tudor Detective Series ‘Shardlake’
The four-part series, produced out of the UK, stars Arthur Hughes as an unlikely detective tasked with uncovering a murder at a 16th century monastery. It comes from Banijay-owned producer The Forge and Runaway Fridge.
Shardlake is a lawyer with an acute sense of justice and one of the few honest men in a world beset with scheming and plots, charged by Henry VIII’s powerful ally Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean) to investigate the murder of one of his commissioners at a monastery in the remote town of Scarnsea. With Crowell’s political survival hanging on him solving the case, Cromwell leaves him in no doubt failure is not an option and orders the cocky Jack Barak (Anthony Doyle) to accompany Shardlake, whose is cruelly known as “crookback” due to his condition as a person living with scoliosis.
The series also stars Babou Ceesay as Abbot Fabian, Paul Kaye as Brother Jerome, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis as Alice, Peter Firth as Norfolk, Matthew Steer as Goodhap, Brian Vernel as Brother Mortimus, Irfan Shamji as Brother Guy, David Pearse as Brother Edwig, Miles Barrow as Brother Gabriel, Mike Noble as Bugge and Kimberley Nixon as Joan.
Shardlake is written by Stephen Butchard (The Good Mothers). The series is executive produced by George Ormond and Mark Pybus for The Forge (a Banijay UK company) and Stevie Lee for Runaway Fridge. The series was commissioned by Lee Mason for Disney+, with Jonny Richards serving as executive producer for Disney+. Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) has directed the series with John Griffin as producer.