What time is Prime Suspect 1973 on TV?
Stefani Martini steps into Helen Mirren's shoes to play the young Jane Tennison...
For over 15 years ITV was the home of Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison... and now she's back – in a prequel to the cop drama set almost two decades before the original series began.
Prime Suspect 1973 comes to TV screens this March, with Stefani Martini taking on the role memorably portrayed by Helen Mirren.
What is it about?
The six part prequel series will reveal how Tennison became such a complex and formidable character in the Metropolitan Police.
Set in 1970s Hackney, it will see Tennison start as a WPC on the beat before being thrown into a brutal murder enquiry. Viewers will also meet her family and gain an insight into her personal life before her time as a detective in Prime Suspect.
What happens in episode 6?
There are so many inevitabilities about Prime Suspect 1973. That a character will yell, “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” That someone else will say of a grievously wounded victim, “Stay with me!” And that another will describe a dreadful incident as surreal when surreal wasn’t used in the 1970s as it is now, to mean odd.
It’s the final episode of an unremarkable prequel, and by the end we still have no real sense of the woman and the police officer that Jane Tennison (Stefanie Martini) will become. True, she takes some personal and professional knocks, but don’t we all? And they don’t turn us into a terrific, powerhouse female detective.
Who's in the cast?
Sam Reid (Belle, The Riot Club) and Blake Harrison (Dad’s Army, The Inbetweeners) star as Jane’s superiors DCI Len Bradfield and DS Spencer Gibbs, with Alun Armstrong (New Tricks, Little Dorrit), Ruth Sheen (Unforgotten, Inside No.9), Lex Shrapnel (Medici: Masters of Florence) and Jay Taylor (Promise) cast as crime family members Clifford, Renee, John and David Bentley.
Jessica Gunning (Jericho, Fortitude) is fellow WPC Kath Morgan alongside Andrew Brooke (Babylon, Da Vinci’s Demons) as Jane’s senior officer Sergeant Harris.
Nick Sidi (Silent Witness, DCI Banks) and Geraldine Somerville (Silent Witness, New Tricks) will play Jane’s parents, Andrew and Joyce, with Rosie Day (Outlander, Cuffs) as her sister Pam.
Further cast include Joshua Hill (Death in Paradise, Vera) as DC Edwards, Daniel Ezra (Undercover, Prey) as DC Ashton, Tommy McDonnell (Jericho, Glue) as DC Hudson, and Jordan Long (Unforgotten, The Wrong Mans) as DS Paul Lawrence.
What time is episode 6 on?
Prime Suspect 1973 is scheduled to air at 9pm on ITV on Thursday 6th April.
