County lines drug dealing and an escalating, insidious crime wave sweeping the British countryside is the subject of new six-part ITV and ITVX drama, Out There, starring Martin Clunes, as a farmer confronted with dark forces seeping into his rural community.
The drama will depict the stealthy, surreptitious invasion of the land our farmer cherishes, with devastating consequences, as his livelihood, homestead and family life are threatened by local county lines drugs dealers, essentially urban gangs using the British countryside as a field of operations, moving drugs and money between their inner-city hubs and provincial areas.
Martin Clunes:
“I’m very happy to be working with Marc Evans and Ed Whitmore again after the success of Manhunt. Out There couldn’t be more different from Doc Martin. It’s pretty dark, but definitely a story worth telling.”
Written by screenwriter Ed Whitmore and directed by Marc Evans the series is set in the beautiful Welsh countryside with filming currently underway. Martin Clunes plays Nathan Williams, a man who runs a farm which has been in his family for generations, caught in a numbing rhythm of work and grief following the death of his wife, Sabine, two years previously. A single parent to teenager Johnny, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Nathan is uniquely placed and possesses enough pent-up energy to take on the gangs that
threaten to engulf his son.
Consequently, he embarks on a personal journey that will take him ever further out of his comfort zone into a dark alternative world as he fights to protect his family, his homestead and his legacy. He’s missed all the clues that the country idyll around him has been fatally compromised, contaminated by waves of criminality spreading and mutating virus-like from the city.
Now Nathan must accept that the rustic atmosphere of his childhood is long gone, replaced by something altogether more edgy and perilous. And the only way for Nathan, our hero, to survive in this brave new world is to learn the
rules and fight back….
ITV’s Head of Drama Polly Hill:
“Out There is a brilliantly compelling drama, from the team behind Manhunt, where county lines become very real for a father and son already dealing with the modern challenges of running a farm. Martin Clunes is wonderful as Nathan, in a drama full of surprises, as he tries to navigate the best way to save his son, in a world he doesn’t understand.”
