“An acute, deftly rendered and often funny insider’s view”
Daily Telegraph
“Hilarious”
The Observer
BBC Two has commissioned Defending The Guilty a new comedy from Big Talk Productions. Written by Kieron Quirke (Cuckoo) and based on the book Defending The Guilty: Truth And Lies In The Criminal Courtroom by Alex McBride. The pilot episode was directed and executive produced by Jim Field Smith.
Will Sharpe (Flowers), plays Will Packham – an idealistic pupil barrister being shown the ropes by his cynical, worldly-wise pupilmaster Caroline, played by BAFTA Award winner Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd, Humans).
Mistakenly believing that his role is to serve justice, Will must navigate his way through a criminal justice system seemingly designed to be as opaque and confusing as possible.
While also dealing with his fellow pupils, each of them after the same single job at the end of their training and more than happy to stab each other in the back to get it. Can he succeed and hold on to his principles? Or will the system claim another victim?
Additional cast include Gwyneth Keyworth (Black Mirror) as Danielle, Prasanna Puwanarajah (Doctor Foster, Patrick Melrose) as Ashley and Hugh Coles as Liam.
The series was commissioned by Shane Allen, Controller, Comedy Commissioning and Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC Two. The BBC Comedy Commissioning Editor is Kate Daughton.
Created by Kieron Quirke and Alex McBride
Directed by Jim Field Smith
Produced by Georgie Fallon
Executive Producers: Kenton Allen, Saurabh Kakkar, Jim Field Smith, Kieron Quirke
Director of Photography: Jamie Cairney
Editor: David Webb
Production Designer: Jonathan Paul Green
Costume Designer: Wizz Francis
A Big Talk production for BBC
Jim Field Smith 