S&A fave Sophie Okonedo will star alongside Peter Firth, Aidan Gillen and Lesley Manville in what the BBC is calling a "sophisticated five-part thriller" titled Mayday, from writers Ben Court and Caroline Ip (Whitechapel).

What's the Mayday story:

When a young girl goes missing on her way to the Mayday parade, the small community in which she lives looks to one another for answers. But beneath the picture-postcard idyll lies a sinister other world and the dark woods teem with myth. As the community reels from Hattie’s disappearance, the drama follows the mass hysteria and ensuing search from the point of view of the central characters, each of whom fears that someone they know is responsible. As they keep silent, their suspicions intensify over the course of the five episodes.

Sophie Okonedo will play Fiona, described as "a young mum determined to protect her family, who spies on a neighbour."

Jane Featherstone, of Kudos Film and Television (then company behind the project) describes Mayday:

“A highly authored serial from Ben Court and Caroline Ip which has attracted a brilliant cast and takes an original look at a familiar story. There are no police incident rooms, autopsies or crime scene investigations, instead this is about a town facing the reality that the killer is among them, one of them.”

Filming starts next week in Dorking.

This should be good stuff! Of course, whether or not it'll travel is another story. But glad to see that Sophie continues to work steadily. She co-stars in the Australian drama The Slap, has a supporting role in the Will Smith/Jaden Smith sci-fi adventurer After Earth, the BBC/Sky1 production of Sinbad, and recntly returned to the London stage to star in a play.