Stay tuned... Stephen Merchant’s red light drama has been green lit.
The Office star is set to play a rehabilitated kerb crawler in BBC One’s Offenders, Talk TV can reveal.
It’s about a group of small-time criminals reintegrating into society and follows them as they carry out community service as payback.
The 6ft 7in funnyman will perform and direct his own script.
Due to shoot in his home town of Bristol this autumn, it will be produced by Lookout Point, whose shows include Gentleman Jack and Les Miserables.
The drama also features an Oxbridge student with a shoplifting habit and a gang member attempting to go straight.
The motley crew of misfits are thrown together to renovate a dilapidated community centre and chaos ensues. The eight-part drama is due to air in 2020.
Stephen, who starred in and directed Fighting With My Family with The Rock, will be returning from his LA home, once owned by Ellen DeGeneres, to shoot scenes.
It’s not the only dark role Stephen, 44, has had to get his teeth into.
The Bafta, Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor, writer and director is set to star in a new drama called The Barking Murders.
He plays Stephen Port, who used dating app Grindr to kill four men in 2014 and 2015. Speaking about the series, he said: “This is a story that can’t be ignored – how four young lives were lost and their families’ brave attempt to uncover what happened.”
He stars alongside Jaime Winstone, Rufus Jones, and Sheridan Smith, who plays the mother of Port’s first victim, Anthony Walgate.
The three-part series has been created by Jeff Pope and Neil McKay, who previously worked on The Moorside and Appropriate Adult.
Twisted Port killed Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor and
he was given a life term in 2016.
Sounds like Stephen is going for gritty over giggles these days...
