Actor Sacha Dhawan, who is known for Doctor Who and The Great, Wolf, has been roped in to play the title role in a new BBC detective series Virdee. The six-part series is the screen adaptation of pharmacist A.A. Dhand’s bestselling Harry Virdee crime novels that follow an enigmatic detective.
Dhand is a registered pharmacist based in Yorkshire who has published a series of crime novels chronicling the life of Bradford detective Harry Virdee.
The series will introduce Detective Harry Virdee – played by Dhawan – a Bradford cop disowned by his Sikh family for marrying Saima, who is Muslim.
While Virdee struggles to reunite with his family, he works to hunt down a murderer targeting the Asian community.
A teaser shares: “Harry struggles with the abandonment, constantly attempting to reunite with his family. With his personal life in chaos, he must hunt down a killer targeting the Asian community. When the murderer kidnaps a local MP’s daughter in Bradford and holds the entire city to ransom, Harry realises that he is going to need the help of his brother-in-law Riaz, a drugs kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the county. Pulled together in an alliance that could ruin them both, Harry must make a choice: save himself and his family or save his city. He will not be able to do both.”
AA Dhand said, “Like me, DCI Harry Virdee is a proud Brit who dreams big and whilst he is passionate about his heritage, it is not something which solely defines him. He refuses to be shackled by the past and believes in merging worlds, cultures, and identities; no matter the cost. Hey, aim big or go home – this is Yorkshire.”
Paul Trijbits, executive producer, added, “Working with Amit to get the Harry Virdee books to the screen has been a long but utterly satisfying journey. It’s no mean feat for Amit to have succeeded in adapting this love story set in such a rich and complex world and wrapping it all up in a crime series.”
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