Skins star Dakota Blue Richards is joining the cast of Endeavour as a sassy new sidekick for the detective.
The 21-year-old actress will star alongside Shaun Evans as Constable Shirley Trewlove in the third series of the Inspector Morse prequel, and she and Endeavour Morse look set to develop a strong bond.
Dakota said: “It’s very exciting to be joining the talented cast of Endeavour. WPC Trewlove is incredibly astute and enthusiastic and I can’t wait to see how her story unfolds.”
The ITV crime drama, set in the 1960s, will return for four 120-minute episodes later this year.
Scriptwriter Russell Lewis said: “Bright, capable and brave, WPC Shirley Trewlove is a very welcome addition to the ranks of Oxford’s finest.
“While very much a young woman of the 1960s, Trewlove also evokes a very particular kind of timeless British heroine – Betjeman’s ‘Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak’, the sort of clear-eyed, resourceful young woman one wouldn’t be surprised to find behind the wheel of the ambulance in Ice Cold In Alex or keeping Robert Donat company across the moors in The 39 Steps. In Dakota we have found our perfect Trewlove.”
The last series of Endeavour ended on a cliffhanger with the detective behind bars after being framed for the murder of Chief Constable Rupert Standish.
Viewers were left in the dark as to whether his senior officer, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, played by Roger Allam, had survived being shot in the chest.
Jack Laskey, Sean Rigby, Anton Lesser, James Bradshaw and Abigail Thaw are all set to reprise their roles in the show.
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