Mark Gatiss will co-write and star in Bookish, a crime drama for Alibi, and here are the details of the new show.
It’s been several years since the last project by The League Of Gentlemen, and there is as of yet so sign of any further adventures for Sherlock. However, in the intervening years, Mark Gatiss has kept himself busy with a number of projects, from his annual MR James Ghost Story For Christmas films, collaborating with Steven Moffat again on Dracula and directing Moffat’s debut play The Unfriend.
His next television project will be Bookish, a crime drama for Alibi he wrote with Matthew Sweet.
The synopsis reads as follows:
London, 1946 is the dynamic, dangerous and chaotic setting for this stylish new detective drama, with the eccentric Gabriel Book (Gatiss) at the very heart of the story: a self-appointed consultant detective to the local police. The thousands of books that line the shelves of his shop provide him with all the knowledge he needs.
Book has gathered around him a host of lovable, damaged misfits whom he informally protects, cajoles, and mentors. His wife Trottie (Polly Walker) runs the wallpaper shop next door. She’s a charismatic adventuress whom Book loves deeply but not physically, for they are in a ‘lavender’ marriage to help conceal Book’s sexual orientation in a time when it was illegal to be gay.
The cast also includes Connor Finch as Jack, Elliot Levey as Inspector Bliss, Buket Kömür as Nora, Joely Richardson, Daniel Mays and Jonas Nay.
Gatiss said “To misquote Goodfellas: “All my life I’ve wanted to be a detective!” I couldn’t be more excited to be bringing this series to the screen, and to plunge viewers into our intoxicating version of post-War London. It’s an under-examined time and an under-examined world and Bookish is the strange, funny and thrilling show that I’ve always wanted to make”.
The show will comprise of three two part stories across six seventy minute episodes.
Bookish will be broadcast on Alibi in 2025.
