Horror series Penny Dreadful already has a healthy pedigree thanks to the involvement of Skyfall creative team Sam Mendes and John Logan. We already know some of the cast who will appear in the show, with Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, Josh Hartnett, Harry Treadaway, Rory Kinnear and Reeve Carney all aboard to star. The cast’s ranks are swelling by one, with Billie Piper jumping aboard.
Piper, still probably best known for playing Rose on Doctor Who (a role she’ll return to for the upcoming 50th anniversary episode The Day Of The Doctor alongside David Tennant), is set to play an Irish immigrant in Victorian London who is trying to escape a dark past.
The series will be set in the foggy depths of the capital at that time, as a variety of iconic figures deal with alienation and lust. With The Impossible and – probably even more fittingly, The Orphanage’s – Juan Antonio Bayona set to call the shots on the first two episodes, shooting is scheduled to start next month in Dublin.
The show, which is primarily produced by US cable channel Showtime, has just added another British connection, with Sky Atlantic now agreeing to co-produce the show. That should mean that we’ll see it over here at the same time as it airs in America.