Tahirah Sharif on why The Tower is different from "other police dramas"

The actress was sent the scripts before she auditioned for the part, and described "spending a day" reading all three episodes, which proved a contrast to past police crime dramas she'd auditioned for.

"I've auditioned for other police dramas or crime dramas, and a lot of the time, I read the script, and they're very hard to read. There are so many different characters and [it's] 'DS' this and 'DC' that 'PC' this, and I get quite lost, and I can't get a clear sense of who these people are and their relationships to each other."

She continued: "When I read Tower, it was genuinely just like reading a book. I couldn't stop turning [the pages]. I just wanted to keep reading each page and find out what happened. And every single character was written so well. And their personality traits [were] so clear that it made it so easy to read. I remember thinking, 'This is a really good script. This is a really good script and I really want this role'."

She added that the drama will "humanise police officers and show that they make mistakes, or let emotion[s] lead them at times, or let their own kind of, I guess unconscious biases lead them in different ways."

The series is based on Post Mortem, the first in Kate London’s Metropolitan series of novels, which centre on the characters of DS Sarah Collins (played by Gemma Whelan) and another female officer, Lizzie, played by Sharif.

• The Tower review: Gemma Whelan plays incorruptible Met detective in ITV drama

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