Line of Duty creators announce brand new crime drama

World Productions, the award-winning production company behind Line of Duty, has had a new six-part crime drama picked up by Channel 4. 

Titled The Gathering, the series hails from acclaimed writer and director Helen Walsh and centres on a group of Merseyside teens who have mysterious - and quite possibly criminal - pasts. 

To be honest, that sentence alone is enough to make us fall for the show hook, line and sinker, but Channel 4’s head of drama has also revealed The Gathering will be aimed at younger audiences, which really is the icing on the cake. 

Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo

Channel 4’s Caroline Hollick said: “We are thrilled to be working with the brilliant Helen Walsh and World Productions on this exciting series; The Gathering which forms part of our strategy to commission drama which also appeals to younger viewers.”

Hollick added: “Through this absorbing story, with Helen’s beautifully drawn, real and relatable characters, the series looks at how family, friendship and aspiration is influenced and shaped by the highs and lows of modern-day parenting. 

“Exploring relevant and urgent themes around what it means to be a teenager, as well as a parent today, The Gathering is cleverly wrapped up in a compelling ‘whodunnit’ thriller, where the stakes are upped episode after episode.”

So what else do we know? Well, the show will centre on Kelly, The Gathering’s main protagonist and the victim of a previous attack. 

Kelly, an accomplished gymnast, is at risk of having her disciplined lifestyle wrecked by the crowd she hangs out with - a group of rather reckless teens.

GARY DOAK / Alamy Stock Photo

Kelly’s brush with a crowd outside of the regimented bubble of competitive sports begins to threaten her future with Team GB, and describing the plot, writer Walsh explained: “Micro-managing of children’s lives has become the new normal, The Gathering throws today’s surveillance parenting into sharp focus and asks who is really to blame when our kids f**k up.”

Walsh added: “I wanted to write a twisty, state-of-the-nation take on Philip Larkin’s notorious ‘they f*ck you up’ observation about parents and kids’.

“I’m thrilled to be working with the excellent team at Channel 4 and World Productions and look forward to seeing the kinetic worlds of free-running and tumbling gymnastics brought to our screens.”

No release date for The Gathering has been announced yet, but we’ll be refreshing iPlayer hourly for the next twelve months.