Joanna Lumley and more join Keeley Hawes in new drama from ‘Durrells’ creator

The cast has been announced for ITV’s new series by the writer of The Durrells.

Based upon Gerald Durrell’s classic trilogy of Corfu memoirs, The Durrells launched in 2016 and the final season aired last year.

Fans of the 1930s family period drama received good news in October, however, as ITV revealed that the show’s star Keeley Hawes will be returning to our screens in Finding Alice.

The 42-year-old English actress played Louisa in all four seasons of The Durrells and is also appearing in Keira Knightley’s upcoming movie Misbeheaviour and Channel 4’s new 1980s drama Boys.

Finding Alice is written by The Durrells creator Simon Nye and Call the Midwife director Roger Goldby.

The six-part drama follows a woman whose husband’s sudden and accidental death unearths a trail of secrets, debt, suspicion and criminality.

Joining Keeley Hawes, who’s taking the role of Alice, will be Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) and Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire) as Alice’s parents Sarah and Roger.

Jason Merrells (Cutting It) will play her husband Harry, alongside Gemma Jones (Gentleman Jack) and Kenneth Cranham (Bancroft) as Minnie and Gerry, Alice’s in-laws.

The cast also includes Isabella Pappas (Paranoid) as Alice and Harry’s 16-year-old daughter Charlotte, and Sharon Rooney (The Capture) as Harry’s sister Nicola.

The official synopsis reads: “The series focuses on Alice’s honest, raw, blackly comic journey of grief, love and life after the death of her husband Harry. After moving into their newly finished dream house, Harry dies after falling down the stairs.

“Having designed the weird and wonderful, yet impractical house before he died, the move is one more disorientation for Alice, alongside her sense of loss and abandonment. Her beloved partner of 20 years is no more, and now she can’t even find the fridge.

“If that were her only problem… men have a habit of hiding stuff that they don’t want to deal with, and Alice discovers that Harry was worse than most.”

Executive producer Nicola Shindler commented: “To have such a strong calibre of actors join the cast alongside Keeley to breathe life into these complex characters is incredibly exciting, and I look forward to audiences meeting them.”

Finding Alice starts filming very soon in England and it’ll air on ITV later this year.

The makers of The Durrells recently hinted that they’re already working on a The Durrells follow-up series.

All four seasons of The Durrells are available on DVD on Amazon.