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Suranne Jones (Unforgiven, Coronation Street) leads an impressive ensemble cast in Gwyneth Hughes's (Five Days, Miss Austen Regrets, Cherished) gripping new five-part mystery, Five Days which returns to ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One in March 2010.

A tiny newborn baby is abandoned in the toilets of a Yorkshire hospital. At the same time, the Trans-Pennine commuter train is halted by a suicidal jumper – are they connected?

From this moment on, the lives of those on board the train and in the hospital will be changed irrevocably, not least for DC Laurie Franklin (Suranne Jones), off-duty that day but travelling on the train with her mum, Jen (Anne Reid), who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Laurie likes tying up loose ends. And, if she can prove a connection between the body and the baby, she will be happy. But things never turn out quite the way we expect. Who is the baby's mother? And who is the jumper? And was it a suicide – or was it really a murder? As Laurie is drawn deeper into the mystery, she realises this might not be a simple case at all, but something much darker.

"I wanted to write something which featured police officers as they are, as human beings with their own preoccupations and their own humour," says writer Gwyneth Hughes.

"My father was a uniformed constable in the Metropolitan Police and I rarely see any cops on the telly that I recognise!

"But, although we see a lot of coppers in Five Days, it's not at heart a crime series – it's a multi-layered mystery and all the characters have a part to play in unravelling the puzzle. The format helps here because it challenges the audience to keep up with an investigation which is jumping ahead all the time.

"The inspiration for the second series of Five Days came from lots of ideas I was having about our national identity in modern Britain. I wanted to write about Yorkshire because that's where I live and it's the community I know and love. A lot of Muslims live here and I wanted to write about their lives, too.

"I wanted Muslim characters living richer, fuller lives with issues and concerns that we all face – for example my couple unable to have children. Though I didn't want to avoid the problem of violent extremism, I did want to see it from inside their family experience."

Five Days 2 is an atmospheric ensemble drama – a mystery which unfolds over the five most significant days of the police investigation into these two mysteries. It is set in the heart of urban Yorkshire – a melting pot of tensions and relationships within a multicultural landscape.

The cast features: Suranne Jones as PC Laurie Franklin; David Morrissey as DI Mal Craig, Anne Reid as Jen, Laurie's mum; Bernard Hill as Gerard Hopkirk; Hugo Speer as Superintendent Jim Carpenter; Derek Riddell as Nick Durden; Nina Sosanya as Colly Trent; Steve Evets as Pat Dowling; Ashley Walters as Jamal Matthews; Shaun Dooley as SGT Don Parker; Matthew McNulty as Danny Preston; Navin Chowdhry as DC Bilal Choudry; Shivani Ghai as Nusrat Preston; Sacha Dhawan as Khalil Akram; Cornell John as Didi Mputu; Aaron Neil as Ibra Akram; Philip Arditti as Dr Adel Haydar; Kerry Condon as Sister Siobhan Doole; and Chris Fountain as PC Paul Tait.

A ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Drama Production for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One, Five Days is written by Gwyneth Hughes and produced by Caroline Skinner. The serial is directed by Toby Haynes (Being Human, Spooks Code 9) and Peter Hoar (Mistresses, Spooks). The executive producer is Hilary Salmon (Desperate Romantics, Criminal Justice, Moses Jones, House Of Saddam).

Five Days was commissioned by Jay Hunt, Controller, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One, and Ben Stephenson, Controller, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Drama Commissioning.

Five Days is broadcast on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One at 9.00pm from Monday 1 to Friday 5 March 2010.

Notes to Editors

Five Days series one first broadcast on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One in 2007.

Series one received nominations for BAFTA, RTS and Golden Globe Awards.

AF