Colin Morgan, Madeleine Mantock and Christian Cooke have been confirmed as heading up the cast for the second series of the BBC’s hit real-time thriller Nightsleeper.
Written by the BAFTA and RTS award-winning Nick Leather, the first series aired in September 2024 and followed the fictional Heart of Britain sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London, where two strangers were forced to work together to save the lives of its passengers.
It became the BBC’s biggest new drama launch of the year, with episode one reaching 8.5 million viewers, and has since been sold to 176 territories worldwide.
Series two moves the action from the rails to the open water when a Belfast-to-Liverpool passenger ferry becomes the target of a potentially deadly hack-attack.
With the crew desperately trying to hide the extent of the threat from the passengers, the ferry’s second engineer Johnny (Cooke) must work with the National Cyber Security Centre’s new technical director, Bo (Morgan), to try and fight back. But as the tide turns, secrets surface and fear floods the decks; it isn’t long before those on land are all at sea too…
Also joining the series are Rupert Penry-Jones, Ian McElhinney and Sally Lindsay and it’s been revealed that Parth Thakerar, Jonjo O’Neill and Micah Balfour will reprise their roles as Saj, Hud and Leon from the first series.
The series is produced by Fremantle’s Element Pictures for BBC iPlayer and BBC One and is currently filming in Belfast.
Nick Leather said: “It’s so much fun to be embarking on a second Nightsleeper journey on a route I know so well with the Belfast-to-Liverpool ferry as our new box-of-tricks.
“We’ve assembled such a wonderful cast, I’m so excited about our story and I can’t wait to welcome the audience onboard for a non-stop night to remember…”