Jed Mercurio hopes Line of Duty season 6 changes will be "invisible" as he talks lockdown filming

"It's been pretty tough, to be honest with you," he said. "Firstly I've got to pay tribute to our brilliant cast and crew.

"We've been diligently and rigorously wearing masks the whole time, social distancing, sanitising any objects that pass between people, fogging spaces that we go into as well as having to take other steps such as changing scenes from interior locations to exterior locations.

"Some of our on-location shoots have been moved into the studio so that we were able to ventilate the spaces... so there has been a lot that we've had to do.

"We hope that these changes will be invisible to fans when they watch the series."

Mercurio also teased some more details about the upcoming sixth series, and specifically about the identity of guest star Kelly Macdonald's character DCI Joanne Davidson.

"Kelly plays DCI Joanne Davidson, who is the Senior Investigating Officer on a high profile murder that remains unsolved over a year after the killing and AC-12 get involved because there are question marks over her involvement in the investigation," he explained.

Macdonald follows previous guest stars including Keeley Hawes, Thandie Newton and Stephen Graham and her character has previously been described by the BBC as AC-12's "most enigmatic adversary” yet.

Although we now know the series will air in the first quarter of 2021, exact timings are still to be confirmed.

What we do know is that the Line of Duty cast will once again star Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar as Steve Arnott, Kate Fleming and Ted Hastings respectively.

Line of Duty will return in early 2021. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide, or take a look at our new TV shows 2020 page to find out what’s airing this autumn and beyond. You can also buy the Line of Duty seasons 1-5 boxset now on Amazon.