Waking the Dead - Series 6
Wren Boys: Part One
Tara Fitzgerald joins the cast of the international, Emmy Award-winning Waking The Dead, which returns to investigate more dark, gripping tales of murder mystery.
Tara plays Eve, the team's new forensic scientist, who brings with her the resources of the UK's first and only Forensic Anthropology Observation Unit – or Body Farm, as it's commonly known – a unique facility providing controlled studies of human decomposition to determine time and manner of death.
In tonight's opener – the first of a two-parter – Boyd and his Cold Case team, Grace, Spence, Stella and Eve, investigate the death of a teenage boy found on a building site some years ago. Crucial evidence links the body found on the site with a badly injured teenager dumped at a hospital late one night. Boyd dispatches an unwilling Stella to dismantle a Catholic shrine close to the crime scene for evidence. The shrine and body dumpsite are on land owned by the nearby Abbey which is on a dissolution order. Boyd and his team find themselves investigating pagan and druid rituals, stigmata, Irish travellers and bare-knuckle boxing.
Trevor Eve plays Boyd, Sue Johnston plays Grace, Wil Johnson plays Spence, Felicite du Jeu plays Stella and Tara Fitzgerald plays Eve. The cast also features Daragh O'Malley as Sean Killigan Snr, Carey Mulligan as Sister Brigid, Tony Scannel as Papa McDonagh and Gabrielle Reidy as Nana McDonagh.
Special guest stars to look out for this series include: Alex Jennings, Polly Walker, Graham Crowden, Alison Doody, Oliver Ford Davies, James Fox, Jemma Redgrave, Michelle Forbes and Dame Eileen Atkins.
To complement the new series of Waking The Dead, the BBC is launching a groundbreaking interactive service which is available via broadband and the Red button. By pressing the Red button, or visiting the Waking The Dead website, viewers can discover more about the facts behind each story from the team of experts in forensic science and psychology who work alongside the production team.
Waking The Dead - Series 6 - Episode 2
Deus Ex Machina: Part 1
Khaled Ahmad, a Sudanese politician in the UK, goes on hunger strike in protest at the UK's continued refusal to hand over the skull of the "Mahdi" – a Sudanese ruler from the 19th century – originally stolen from a Sudanese mausoleum by British Forces, in the first of a Waking The Dead two-parter.
Boyd and the Cold Case team are asked to investigate the current whereabouts of the skull so that UK authorities can return it to Sudan.
At the same time, a retired MI6 agent, Sir Cyril Barrett, asks Boyd to reopen the case of Omar Jaffiri, an Iraqi refugee found murdered in his London grocery shop 20 years previously. Barrett tells Boyd the two cases are connected. The team discovers that Jaffiri was tortured before being murdered, and that his young daughter, Leila, may have witnessed the killing. The team questions Leila, now in her twenties.
Meanwhile, Michael Leonard from the Foreign Office tells the team that he used to be a member of the Fakirs, a university drinking society, and that they have a skull which he suspects may be the Mahdi's.
The team breaks into the Fakirs' house during an initiation ritual and takes the skull away for forensic examination. Boyd questions both James Andrews and Elaine Wilson, the married couple who are in charge of the Fakirs, and bullies Wilson into giving him information about the skull.
Trevor Eve plays Boyd, Sue Johnston plays Grace, Wil Johnson plays Spence, Felicite du Jeu plays Stella, Tara Fitzgerald plays Eve, Alex Jennings plays James Andrews, Polly Walker plays Catherine Braithwaite, Graham Crowden plays Sir Cyril Barrett, Abdi Gouhad plays Khaled Ahmad, Alex James plays Michael Leonard, Houda Echouafni plays Leila Jaffiri and Lisa Jackson plays Elaine Wilson.
Waking The Dead - Series 6- Episode 3
The Fall: Part 1
In the first of a two-part story by Damian Wayling, the team is called in when workmen dislodge two sexually conjoined bodies which fall through the ceiling in a former City bank which folded after Black Wednesday.
A 13-digit number on a gold ingot matches that found on a cold case river corpse from 1993. The City bank corpse is bank director Mervyn Simmel, who disappeared and was suspected of skipping the country with the bank's funds. Simmel's co-chairman, Lucien Calvin, who was released following imprisonment for fraud, now masquerades as a therapist, preaching against greed.
Journalist Lisa Tobin takes a keen interest in the case. The female corpse is identified as Katherine Keane, reported missing by her husband, Declan Keane, in 1992. Tobin makes a connection between the two corpses before the team does and explains that she was researching Katherine's biography, and she knows Katherine had three other wealthy lovers at the time of her death: City Alderman Philip White, banker Anthony Garland and shadow Trade and Industry Minister Ian Taggart. Garland had an alibi but is now deceased so the team checks out Taggart and White.
Eve finds evidence of mortification on Katherine's thigh which links to Opus Dei. Boyd is warned off by Opus Dei's London director, Hugo Keegan. Meanwhile, the river corpse is identified as Brian McGurk, aide to an Irish Ambassador in London until he was sacked in 1992. The trail takes the team to Dublin where the case takes a dramatic turn when one of the suspects falls to his death as Boyd watches on, helpless.
The story concludes on Monday night at 9pm on BBC One.
Waking The Dead - Series 6 - Episode 4
Mask Of Sanity: Part 1
When a long-term patient in a secure psychiatric unit is released on the same day that the wallets of his murder victims are sent to the wife of one of them, the spotlight falls again on James Jenson in the latest two-part story for the Cold Case team.
Jenson was the prime suspect at the time of the three murders but was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial following a confession. One of the other suspects was Dr Bruno Rivelli, but this line of enquiry was dropped when Jenson confessed. Grace goes to interview Dr Rivelli, who now runs a successful paediatric psychiatry unit, having previously run the council-owned Hickley children's home.
A former resident of Hickley, Jenson returns to the children's home, now derelict, and remembers incidents from his childhood. Boyd decides to stir things up by telling Jenson that his friends sent the wallets in order to implicate him in the murders.
Spencer follows Jenson to the launch of a new housing development, where Jenson confronts Harris Wall as he makes a speech presenting the new development. The situation is defused by Wall's wife, Sophie, who clearly has influence over Jenson.
Alan Pierce, an old friend of Jenson's from the children's home, gives him a message – Sophie wants to meet with him after the presentation. But when Jenson arrives for the meeting, he is set upon by Harris Wall's security guards. Jenson sees off the security men and manages to escape. Alerted by Spencer, Boyd and Grace race to Pierce's flat but arrive too late – Alan Pierce has been murdered...
The story concludes tomorrow night at 9pm on BBC One.
Nicholas Beveney plays James Jensen, James Fox plays Dr Bruno Rivelli, Sue Johnston plays Grace, Trevor Eve plays Boyd, Wil Johnson plays Spencer, Martin Marquez plays Harris Wall and Jemma Redgrave plays Sophie Wall. The cast also includes Tara Fitzgerald as Eve and Felicite du Jeu as Stella.
Waking The Dead - Series 6 - Episode 5
The Cold Case team is called in when escaped psychiatric patient Daniel Lennon directs a family to unearth a male body in their Hampstead garden, in the penultimate instalment of Waking The Dead.
Unable to remember killing his parents, for which he was convicted, Daniel is off his medication, on the run and has started taking drugs.
The team discovers that the body in the garden is Austrian student Rolf Voller, who went missing in the Sixties. They question elderly consultant psychiatrist Dr Raymond Parke, who worked with Voller. Both knew Daniel. Parke warns them to find Daniel quickly.
Believing the answers to Voller's death lie in the case of Daniel's murdered parents, Eve examines the murder scene. Meanwhile, Daniel cons his way into the home of Dr Parke. Trapped in his own home, Parke frantically tries to get away.
Please note that the sixth and final two-part story in the current series will broadcast on Sunday 18 and Monday 19 February at 9pm on BBC One. On Sunday 11 February, BBC One will screen the Bafta Film Awards.
