First announced last October, the Doctor Who* spin-off known as *Class is starting to round up the cast it needs to fill its educational setting. The BBC has announced that Katherine Kelly will star alongside newcomers Greg Austin, Sophie Hopkins Fady Elsayed and Vivian Oparah.
Class will be set in Coal Hill School, which has been seen several times in Who, not least in the very first episode. More recently, it's been where Jenna Coleman's Clara worked. The series, created by A Monster Calls novelist Patrick Ness, will find the students dealing with huge problems such as lessons, sex and social issues while also finding time for the little things, including alien threats to the entire planet. Kelly, who has worked on shows including Coronation Street, Happy Valley and The Night Manager, will be a teacher, while the others are sixth-formers.
"There's nothing more exciting than meeting stars that nobody's heard of yet. We had the read-through of the first few episodes last week, and there was a whole row of them," says departing Who overlord Steven Moffat. "Coal Hill School has been part of Doctor Who since the very first shoot in 1963, but this new show is anything but history. Class is dark and sexy and right now. I've always wondered if there could be a British Buffy – it's taken the brilliant Patrick Ness to figure out how to make it happen."
The eight-part series of 45-minute episodes will shoot at the Who hub near Cardiff and will be shown on BBC Three later this year.