Wednesday 1 May 2019

Traces, written by Amelia Bullmore (Scott & Bailey, This Life) and produced by RED Production Company (Safe, Butterfly, Happy Valley), for UKTV and BBC Studios Distribution, welcomes a star-studded cast. Alibi confirms an award-winning cast for its first UKTV Original, including Molly Windsor (Three Girls, Cheat), Laura Fraser (The Missing, Breaking Bad) and Jennifer Spence (You Me Her, Travelers) with Line of Duty star Martin Compston.

Joining the all-female production team and directing the six-part series are Rebecca Gatward (Cold Feet, Grantchester) and Mary Nighy (Silent Witness). Also starring in the series are Laurie Brett (EastEnders), Vincent Regan (Delicious, The White Princess), Michael Nardone (Guilt, Night Manager) and John Gordan Sinclair (Marple, Ill Behaviour).

Traces is a suspense-filled crime thriller based on an original idea by best-selling crime writer Val McDermid (Wire In The Blood, A Place Of Execution) and set in the world of forensic science in Dundee, Scotland. The series explores the world of SIFA, the Scottish Institute of Forensic Science and Anatomy and introduces us to three compelling and very different female characters - Emma Hedges (Molly Windsor), Prof. Sarah Gordon (Laura Fraser) and Prof. Kathy Torrance (Jennifer Spence) - who together will use the rigors of forensics to uncover the truth about an unsolved murder case.

When 23-year-old Emma (Windsor) returns to Scotland to take up a new position as a lab assistant at SIFA, she signs up to a MOOC - Massive Open Online Course - which teaches the principles of forensic science. But she soon discovers that the fictitious case study has a strikingly similar and shocking link to her past. As Emma's sleuthing takes her into darker corners and unpicks more and more secrets, it becomes clear that she should trust no-one. It will be Sarah (Fraser) and Kathy's (Spence) exacting minds that reward Emma's faith in the science that has fuelled her imagination and who will ultimately bring a killer to justice.

Running alongside Emma's central story, other cases and different forensic disciplines will shine a spotlight on science's contribution to solving the mysteries of human existence.

Traces will be executive produced by RED Production Company's Nicola Shindler (Safe, Butterfly, Happy Valley, Queer As Folk) and Michaela Fereday (Safe, Scott & Bailey), writer Amelia Bullmore, Philippa Collie-Cousins for UKTV, Martin Rakusen for BBC Studios and Val McDermid who is also co-creator alongside Amelia Bullmore. The series is produced by Juliet Charlesworth (Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey) and will air on Alibi later this year. BBC Studios is handling distribution internationally.

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For more information and interview requests, please contact:

UKTV Publicity Manager, Gem Pinkney
UKTV Publicist, Kelly Phelps
For RED Production Company: Charlie Wainwright Charlie.wainwright@premiercomms.com

Notes for Editors:

About Val McDermid
Val comes from Kirkcaldy, Fife, and read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford (where she is now an Honorary Fellow). She was the first ever student from a state school in Scotland. Following graduation she became a journalist, and worked briefly as a dramatist.?Her first success as a novelist came with Report for Murder The first Lindsay Gordon Mystery, first published in 1987. Among her many awards are the Portico Prize for Fiction, the LA Times Book Prize, the Lambda Literary Pioneer Award and the Cartier Diamond Dagger. She has published 27 novels, short stories, non-fiction and a prize-winning children's book. She is a regular broadcaster for BBC radio and lives in Edinburgh

About UKTV

UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching almost 40m viewers every month.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.

The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories. Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Studios and Discovery, Inc. - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.

corporate.uktv.co.uk | press.uktv.co.uk | @uktvpress

ABOUT RED PRODUCTION COMPANY
RED Production Company was set up by Nicola Shindler in 1998 to work with the best writers on modern, innovative and entertaining programming. She was recently announced as this year's recipient of the BAFTA Special Award in recognition of her services to Television production. The Manchester-based indie has since produced some of the UK's most popular drama series working with critically acclaimed writers including Russell T Davies, Bill Gallagher, Sally Wainwright, Danny Brocklehurst, Dan Sefton and Sean Conway.

RED Production Company has produced some of the UK's most successful and award-winning dramas, including Russell T Davies' Cucumber and Queer As Folk, Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, Danny Brocklehurst's Come Home and Ordinary Lies, Lenny Henry's Danny and the Human Zoo, Dan Sefton's Trust Me, Tony Marchant's Butterfly and Harlan Coben's Safe written by Danny Brocklehurst. Forthcoming series include Russell T Davies' Years and Years for BBC One and The Boys for Channel 4, Harlan Coben's The Stranger written by Danny Brocklehurst for Netflix and series 2 of Trust Me, which is currently airing on BBC One.

RED Production Company is part of STUDIOCANAL's international production network, which includes TANDEM Productions in Germany and SAM in Scandinavia.

About BBC Studios
BBC Studios, a global content company with British creativity at its heart, is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC Group. Formed in April 2018 by the merger of BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios, it spans content financing, development, production, sales, branded services and ancillaries. BBC Studios' award-winning British programmes are internationally recognised across a broad range of genres and specialisms. It has offices in 22 markets globally, including seven production bases in the UK and production bases and partnerships in a further nine countries around the world. The company, which makes 2500 hours of content a year, is a champion for British creativity around the world and a committed partner for the UK's independent sector. BBC Studios has revenue of £1.4bn, and returns around £200m to the BBC Group annually, complementing the BBC's licence fee and enhancing programmes for UK audiences.
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