Virdee Marries Ambition & Scale in a New Detective Thriller

Based on A.A. Dhand’s best-selling crime novels, the new six-part drama Virdee sees Staz Nair step into the role of detective Harry Virdee, a Bradford cop who tracks down a serial killer. In the best traditions of detectives who use their relationships with the underworld to solve crime, Virdee uses his brother-in-law, Riaz, a drug kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the city, to get close to the culprit.

The series comes from the year-old U.K. arm of Magical Society, led by Paul Trijbits, for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Cineflix Rights is taking the title out globally.

The distributor came on board following a pitch meeting with Trijbits and the Magical Society team, explains Tom Misselbrook, Cineflix Rights’ senior VP of scripted sales and development. “We were very quickly interested in the project, from the story to the world that they wanted to create, the ambition and scale of the series and the central protagonist, DCI Harry Virdee, at the heart of the story,” he says. “We were bowled over by the quality of the script from A.A. Dhand that followed and felt like this was a very special project and not something we’ve seen before in the crime thriller space, which we felt the international market would respond well to.”

Misselbrook adds that Virdee is a unique project. “The show is ultimately a crime thriller wrapped around a love story, with a detective trying to save his city because he can’t save himself.”

There are three main strands to the series: the crime thriller story, as DCI Virdee tracks down a serial killer; the corruption story, with his brother-in-law, Riaz, a drug kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the city; and a sweeping family saga with a love story at the heart of it between Harry and his wife, Saima. The Bradford, U.K., setting, meanwhile, is cinematic in scope, staged as a Gotham City of sorts, and provides the viewer a new way of looking at a familiar world when it comes to crime stories.

“There is so much to hook into for audiences,” Misselbrook says. “It’s a big, elevated series, full of intensity, pace and adrenaline but at the same time full of emotion and heart. It takes a genre that we’re familiar with and explores it in a very unfamiliar, dramatic way. It will launch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2025, and we’re hugely excited to be sharing it with our buyers at MIPCOM.”

Having Dhand as the screenwriter on the series is a major creative coup. It being based on a successful book franchise also means that the world and characters at the heart of the series have a strong foundation to build from. “From a commercial perspective, we know that we already have a built-in audience when taking the series out to market, so in a sense, we have a tried-and-tested product and something we have confidence will quickly find an audience and resonate with them,” says Misselbrook.

And the hero at the heart of the piece is a complex and multilayered one. “He’s not a police officer who likes to sit behind a desk; his desk is the streets,” Misselbrook explains. “He’s a very good and very smart detective but one who straddles both sides of the law. Virdee is a man who will do whatever it takes, even if it means skirting a line between good and evil, to protect his city and provide his version of justice. He can be the detective, he can be the family man, he can be the father to his son, but he can also seamlessly switch to hanging out with the most powerful drug dealer in the city. The brilliant Staz Nair has done an amazing job in bringing this character to life with a captivating performance, and we’re confident audiences will share our enthusiasm when it premieres next year.”

The top-tier team working on the project adds to its allure, with Dhand working alongside directors Mark Tonderai (Gotham, Foundation), Milad Ami (Bullshit, When the Dust Settles) and Mo Ali (Hijack, Cobra). The series is produced by Stella Nwimo (Nuclear, The London Mob) and Himesh Kar (Walk with Me, The Bengali Detective) and executive produced by Trijbits (Jane Eyre, The Casual Vacancy, Saving Mr. Banks). Hans Zimmer has put together the original score.

“We are always interested in the crime genre, and there is always a lot of demand for these types of series from the international market,” Misselbrook says. “Virdee is a great fit for our portfolio and complements what we already have on the slate. We have a really varied slate launching at MIPCOM, which I think speaks to how we operate at Cineflix, working with the very best creative talent, putting original storytelling first and offering our buyers a rich, varied slate of scripted series.”