Perdita
11-12-2013, 10:55
1/4
Series synopsis
Olivier award nominated actress Hattie Morahan joins Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Sophie Rundle and Julie Graham for four new episodes of the code-breaking thriller The Bletchley Circle, which returns to ITV at the beginning of 2014.
The series, based on the lives of four extraordinary and brilliant women who worked at top-secret HQ Bletchley Park during World War II, features two self-contained stories each played out across 2 x 60 minute episodes written by series creator Guy Burt.
Set a year on from the first series in 1953, the ladies are reunited for their second case in the first two-part story when former Bletchley Park colleague, Alice Merren (Hattie Morahan) is accused of murder. Jean (Julie Graham) methodically sets to work examining the evidence and is intent on helping Alice after a distinguished scientist is discovered shot through the heart in the study of his home with Alice, gun in hand, standing over him.
The evidence is stacked against her, but Jean’s instincts tell her differently and she goes to visit Alice in Holloway Prison. Alice is quietly resigned to the fact she will hang. But why has she offered no defence and why does she refuse to talk?
Jean calls on the ladies to reunite, but will they share her faith in Alice’s innocence?
Episode synopsis
Former Bletchley Park girl Alice Merren (Hattie Morahan) is in prison awaiting trial for murder. Jean (Julie Graham) believes her to be innocent and begins to reunite the circle to help establish the innocence of one of their own.
Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin) is reluctant to get involved after her near death experience with Crowley (series 1) and the danger it posed to her family. Lucy (Sophie Rundle) now has a clerical job at Scotland Yard. She is getting on well and keeping her head down and Millie (Rachel Stirling) is working as a German translator.
Alice is on trial for killing John Richards (Paul McGann) a former Bletchley Park colleague. Jean knows that him and Alice were once lovers and having visited Alice in Holloway she deducts that she is covering for someone else, but why?
The girls start piecing the mystery together from the clues in Richard’s house and it becomes evident there was another woman involved in this somehow. Through further investigation all clues lead to Lizzie Lancaster (Faye Marsay) a young woman who appears to have had some sort of relationship with Richards prior to his death.
The girls find a way in to Lizzie’s flat and route around for clues. They discover a classified military file and some press cuttings relating to an incident in which military personnel were injured in a chemical spill on Salisbury Plain. They then track down Lizzie, only to find someone else has been doing the same thing and they arrive just in time to push Lizzie out of the way of a car heading straight towards her. Who is trying to kill her? Before they can confront Lizzie she disappears.
They continue to investigate but Lizzie has worked out that the girls have been tracking her. She is scared for her life and dramatically confronts them. She believes they are working with Alice, that they killed Richards and are now trying to kill her.
All the pieces begin to fall in to place for Susan, who works it out - who would Alice be willing to face the death penalty for? Lizzie is Alice’s daughter, her daughter who was given up for adoption. This news is as much of a shock to Lizzie as it is to anyone else.
Cast list:
Anna Maxwell Martin - Susan
Rachael Stirling - Millie
Julie Graham - Jean
Sophie Rundle - Lucy
Hattie Morahan - Alice
Paul McGann - John Richards
Faye Marsay - Lizzie
Freddie Anness-Lorenz - Sam
Mable Watson - Claire
Mark Dexter - Timothy
Nick Blood - Ben Gladston
Paul Ritter - Professor Masters
Tim Pigott-Smith - Colonel
Series synopsis
Olivier award nominated actress Hattie Morahan joins Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Sophie Rundle and Julie Graham for four new episodes of the code-breaking thriller The Bletchley Circle, which returns to ITV at the beginning of 2014.
The series, based on the lives of four extraordinary and brilliant women who worked at top-secret HQ Bletchley Park during World War II, features two self-contained stories each played out across 2 x 60 minute episodes written by series creator Guy Burt.
Set a year on from the first series in 1953, the ladies are reunited for their second case in the first two-part story when former Bletchley Park colleague, Alice Merren (Hattie Morahan) is accused of murder. Jean (Julie Graham) methodically sets to work examining the evidence and is intent on helping Alice after a distinguished scientist is discovered shot through the heart in the study of his home with Alice, gun in hand, standing over him.
The evidence is stacked against her, but Jean’s instincts tell her differently and she goes to visit Alice in Holloway Prison. Alice is quietly resigned to the fact she will hang. But why has she offered no defence and why does she refuse to talk?
Jean calls on the ladies to reunite, but will they share her faith in Alice’s innocence?
Episode synopsis
Former Bletchley Park girl Alice Merren (Hattie Morahan) is in prison awaiting trial for murder. Jean (Julie Graham) believes her to be innocent and begins to reunite the circle to help establish the innocence of one of their own.
Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin) is reluctant to get involved after her near death experience with Crowley (series 1) and the danger it posed to her family. Lucy (Sophie Rundle) now has a clerical job at Scotland Yard. She is getting on well and keeping her head down and Millie (Rachel Stirling) is working as a German translator.
Alice is on trial for killing John Richards (Paul McGann) a former Bletchley Park colleague. Jean knows that him and Alice were once lovers and having visited Alice in Holloway she deducts that she is covering for someone else, but why?
The girls start piecing the mystery together from the clues in Richard’s house and it becomes evident there was another woman involved in this somehow. Through further investigation all clues lead to Lizzie Lancaster (Faye Marsay) a young woman who appears to have had some sort of relationship with Richards prior to his death.
The girls find a way in to Lizzie’s flat and route around for clues. They discover a classified military file and some press cuttings relating to an incident in which military personnel were injured in a chemical spill on Salisbury Plain. They then track down Lizzie, only to find someone else has been doing the same thing and they arrive just in time to push Lizzie out of the way of a car heading straight towards her. Who is trying to kill her? Before they can confront Lizzie she disappears.
They continue to investigate but Lizzie has worked out that the girls have been tracking her. She is scared for her life and dramatically confronts them. She believes they are working with Alice, that they killed Richards and are now trying to kill her.
All the pieces begin to fall in to place for Susan, who works it out - who would Alice be willing to face the death penalty for? Lizzie is Alice’s daughter, her daughter who was given up for adoption. This news is as much of a shock to Lizzie as it is to anyone else.
Cast list:
Anna Maxwell Martin - Susan
Rachael Stirling - Millie
Julie Graham - Jean
Sophie Rundle - Lucy
Hattie Morahan - Alice
Paul McGann - John Richards
Faye Marsay - Lizzie
Freddie Anness-Lorenz - Sam
Mable Watson - Claire
Mark Dexter - Timothy
Nick Blood - Ben Gladston
Paul Ritter - Professor Masters
Tim Pigott-Smith - Colonel