Big Preview AND TRAILER: Sarah Lancashire on Channel 4's Kiri

BAFTA-winner Jack Thorne (National Treasure) returns to Channel 4 with a powerful and compelling new serial drama. Kiri examines the abduction of a young black girl and the search that follows

At the heart of the drama lies Miriam, played by BAFTA and RTS award-winner Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax), an experienced, no-nonsense social worker who loves and believes in her job, but has a maverick and instinctive approach to protecting the children in her care.

Miriam arranges for Kiri to have an unsupervised visit with her biological grandparents. But when Kiri disappears during the visit, the fingers of suspicion and blame from the police, the press, and even her colleagues, point firmly at Miriam.

As the media spotlight around the story intensifies, Miriam, as well as both sets of families, are forced to ask the toughest questions, not just of themselves, but of each other.

We caught up with Sarah...

Your new drama is Kiri – could you explain a little bit about the show and who you play?

I play Miriam. She’s a rather colourful character. She’s a social worker. She’s somewhat mischievous. She likes to unsettle people with her directness and earthiness. But she’s also brilliantly flawed, as are most of the best characters to play. She’s really striving to do good in an imperfect world, whilst carrying her own demons, which is very much part of the human condition. It’s what makes these characters live and breathe. She has a defiance, a very strong purpose, a need to do good in society. But she also works very instinctively, she uses her intuition, but in this instance it leads to a catastrophic end.

Can you explain a little bit about where we find Miriam at the beginning of the story?

She makes a decision to allow one of the youngsters that she’s in charge of, Kiri, to visit her paternal grandparents, unchaperoned. It’s a decision taken with all parties’ agreement, and borne out of the fact that her adoption is pending. All things considered, Miriam feels it is a safe situation. But it quickly becomes clear that this decision has devastating consequences, the effects of which are explored in in the series.