Sarah Lancashire becomes Witch of Cambridge in dark Netflix thriller
The Happy Valley star will play a convicted child killer returning home after three decades behind bars in Abi Morgan’s new six-part drama.
Sarah Lancashire is set to swap the police uniform of Happy Valley for the other side of a murder investigation in a dark new Netflix thriller about a convicted child killer returning home after 30 years in prison.
The 61-year-old actress will lead the six-part Witch Hunt as August Howell, a descendant of the mysterious “Witch of Cambridge”, who is released after serving three decades for drowning three of her young daughters.
Her return to a university town is met with hostility before fears emerge that it has triggered a modern-day witch hunt and the police turn to August’s surviving daughter, Professor Wren Howell, an academic and investigative psychologist, to help find a killer.
Sarah said: ”It’s a brilliantly imagined and utterly compelling story with a deeply complex character at its heart. There’s so much to explore in August and I can’t wait to begin.”
The drama reunites Sarah with writer Abi Morgan, more than 25 years after they worked together on the 2000 ITV crime drama My Fragile Heart.
Abi, who created BBC legal drama The Split and also wrote The Hour, Suffragette and The Iron Lady, said: ”I have been chasing the perfect Child role for her ever since.
“This is it. "I can’t think of anyone better to embody the terrifying tenderness of The Witch of Cambridge.”
Witch Hunt is being produced by SISTER Pictures, with Sarah and Abi among its executive producers alongside Jane Featherstone.
Netflix has yet to announce the rest of the cast, while the series is expected to arrive in 2028.
The announcement comes as Sarah is also returning to one of her most recent roles in the second series of Netflix spy thriller Black Doves.
She plays the formidable Reed, the handler of Keira Knightley’s Helen Webb, with the new series due to arrive on 5 November.
A newly released trailer reveals that Reed has gone missing as Helen finds herself operating at the heart of government.
The series also brings back Ben Whishaw as assassin Sam Young.
Sarah first appeared in the six-part thriller in 2024 alongside Keira and Ben, with the story following Helen, a spy secretly operating while married to a senior politician.
But Sarah remains most closely associated with her award-winning performance as police sergeant Catherine Cawood in the BBC crime drama Happy Valley.
The Yorkshire-set series, created by Sally Wainwright, concluded with its third series in 2023 after a final confrontation between Catherine and Tommy Lee Royce.
The role earned Sarah widespread acclaim and multiple Bafta awards during the drama’s three-series run.
Her television career stretches back to playing Raquel Wolstenhulme in Coronation Street, before major roles in Where the Heart Is, Clocking Off, Last Tango in Halifax, Kiri and The Accident.
Sarah also played American chef Julia Child in HBO drama Julia, which ran for two series before being cancelled in 2023.
