Vera

Sunday, 22 May 2011, 8:00PM – 10:00PM

International award winning actress Brenda Blethyn OBE stars in VERA. The star of such prestigious productions as Secrets and Lies, Pride and Prejudice and Atonement will play Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, in four stand alone films. The central character is Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope who is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. If she’s lonely she doesn’t show it and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage. Her trusted and long suffering colleague is Sergeant Joe Ashworth (David Leon); her right hand man and surrogate son. Together they approach every new case with unparalleled gusto and professionalism. 

DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) and her team uncover the murder of Margaret Wilde (Laura Norton), whose body has been discovered in a hedgerow, moments after her death. 

Margaret’s eleven year old son, Adam (Sam Jarvis), escaped the violent attack, only to fall into a freezing cold pond, where Vera finds him twenty minutes later. She wastes no time in taking matters into her own hands and wades into the water to pull him out. Against all the odds, Adam survives and becomes a vital witness to his mother’s murder. 

Sergeant Joe Ashworth (David Leon) is at first held up in court as a witness to a previous investigation, leaving way for DC Holly Lawson (Wunmi Mosaku) to step up to the plate and prove herself to Vera. However a connection between the two cases results in Joe returning to the investigation when Adam recognises Judge Patricia Carmichael (Kerry Fox). 

Vera is convinced that Bobby Slater’s (Kieran O’Brien) brief affair with Margaret is not all that it seems, especially when Joe discovers a petrol receipt putting him five minutes from where she was murdered. As the team delve deeper into Margaret’s past they unearth deadly secrets and murderous consequences, fuelled by power and money and, above all, a mother’s love. 

Vera, usually awkward and disinterested around children, finds a kindred spirit in Adam and begins to realise along the way that the key to the investigation lies deep within his memory, and someone he calls ‘shiny man’.