ITV’s Director of Drama, Polly Hill, has commissioned gripping thriller, Nightswimming, starring multi-BAFTA and RTS award-winning actor, writer and producer, Lennie James.
Nightswimming is the latest work from Emmy and Golden Globe award winning producers and screenwriters Harry and Jack Williams and their production company, Two Brothers Pictures (The Missing, Baptiste, The Tourist, Liar, Angela Black, The Assassin), which is part of Banijay UK. Photo of Lennie James: credit Anthony Francis (ITV)
With Harry and Jack’s reputation for writing and producing breathtaking thrillers, Nightswimming is no exception, as the series creates a multi layered narrative, twisting and turning with every revelation as Matthew, played by Lennie James (Mr Loverman, Save Me, Mayor of Kingston), returns to his home in Portugal where he was convicted of the brutal murder of his family years earlier.
Weaving between past and present, Nightswimming picks apart the events that led up to the devastating night when Matthew’s wife, Beth, and two teenage sons, Alex and Simon, were brutally attacked in their beachfront home, while Matthew was performing his nightly ritual, swimming in the ocean. In the present, Matthew mounts his own investigation into the crime that tore his life apart, confronting old friends, revisiting broken relationships and interrogating the people who built the case against him. But as he slowly unravels what happened a decade before, he struggles to plead his own innocence, when he discovers it was someone much closer to home that helped to put him away.
Commented Lennie James:
“I am very excited about getting going on Nightswimming. It’s a juicy, grownup thriller about family, love, loss, betrayal, redemption and the price of justice. Matthew is the kind of character I love to play, full of complexity, contradiction and conviction. This is top notch storytelling, and I’m chuffed to be a part of it.”
ITV’s Polly Hill will oversee production of the drama for the broadcaster, with Harry and Jack Williams executive producing alongside Daisy Mount, Sarah Hammond and Lennie James. Cleo Hetherington is co-exec producer whilst Georgina Lowe is producer and Kelly Valentine-Hendry is the casting director with filming commencing in Portugal during the spring of 2027.
Commented Harry and Jack Williams:
“We absolutely relished writing Nightswimming, it’s a small-town thriller with a morally murky edge, grounded in a knotty, complex character. We can’t wait to work with ITV again and to see what Lennie – who we are thrilled to have on board – does with ‘Matthew’ when we begin filming in Portugal next year.”
Commented Polly Hill:
“I am delighted to be working with Harry and Jack again. Nightswimming is an incredible thriller with all the twists and surprises you would expect from them. It will keep the audience on the edge of their seat. At the heart of it though is Matthew, who is in a nightmare of his own, being wrongly accused of killing his family. I am so thrilled that Lennie James has agreed to play him. I think it’s going to be an unmissable drama.”
Banijay Rights will be responsible for the global distribution of the series. Two Brothers is a Banijay UK Company.
