'Down Cemetery Road' Fills Out Cast Ahead of 'Slow Horses' Season 4
'Down Cemetery Road' by Mick Herron Cover Art
Constable ©2003
Apple TV+'s adaptation of Mick Herron's Slough House series, Slow Horses, has become the streaming series biggest hit since Ted Lasso, growing audience year-on-year since Seasons 1 and 2 debuted practically back-to-back in 2021. To that end, the streaming service is doubling down on British mysteries. Earlier this summer, the streaming service announced it had bought the rights to Herron's other series of novels, The Oxford Mysteries. Like Slow Horses, the series is named for the first book, Down Cemetery Road; Emma Thompson (Why Didn't They Ask Evans) and Ruth Wilson (The Woman in the Wall) have been set to star.
Apple TV+ is not the least-watched service, but out of the "Major Players" in the U.S. market (Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Max, Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+), it lags woefully behind in the number of subscribers. This is because Apple doesn't push the streaming service on its users. If it followed its competitors' model and force-signed every person who bought an Apple device to its service (like everyone who uses Amazon Prime to shop is a "Prime Video subscriber"), it would easily match Netflix's numbers. Instead, it's been satisfied to let shows do as they will, like Slow Horses, which became a hit despite only minor marketing for its first two seasons.
However, Apple is starting to change its tune after an embarrassing run of flops. Down Cemetery Road is the company's first attempt at building a homegrown franchise. The company calls it "a companion piece" to Slow Horses and timing its announcements around the Season 4 marketing schedule, including rolling out an impressive cast for the new series less than a week before the latest season of Slow Horses debuts.
Top Row: Adeel Akhtar, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tom Goodman-Hill, Darren Boyd; Bottom Row: Ken Nwosu, Sinead Matthews, Adam Godley, Tom Riley
Apple TV+/Sarah Cresswell/The Other Richard/Michael Shelford/Wolf Marloh/Nathan Johnson/James Joyce/Michael Shelford
As previously announced, Emma Thompson will star as struggling Oxford private eye Zoë Boehm, the show's protagonist; Ruth Wilson is Sarah Tucker, who becomes obsessed with the whereabouts of a child she believes to have gone missing. They will be joined by ten high-profile actors: Adeel Akhtar (Sherwood), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Culprits), Tom Goodman-Hill (Mr Selfridge), Darren Boyd (The Outlaws), Tom Riley (Murder Is Easy), Adam Godley (The Great), Sinead Matthews (Hullraisers), Ken Nwosu (The Winter King), Fehinti Balogun (A Gentleman in Moscow) and Aiysha Hart (We Are Lady Parts).
Here's the series synopsis:
When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbor Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm. Zoë and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.
Actor Morwenna Banks (Funny Woman), whose writing credits include Slow Horses, is the lead writer; she has not yet taken an on-screen role. Natalie Bailey (Audrey) will serve as lead director. Banks executive produces the project with Thompson, Herron, Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, and Tom Nash of 60Forty Films.
Down Cemetery Road is currently in production and is expected in 2025. Slow Horses Season 4 debuts with two episodes on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, with one a week to follow. Season 5 is already greenlit.
