SHOWTIME today unveiled the official trailer and key art for The Woman in the Wall, the six-episode thriller starring and executive produced by BAFTA and Golden Globe Award winner Ruth Wilson (The Affair, His Dark Materials) and co-starring BAFTA Award nominee Daryl McCormack (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Peaky Blinders).
The Woman in the Wall will premiere on streaming and on demand for Paramount+ subscribers with the Paramount+ with SHOWTIME plan on Friday, January 19, before making its on-air debut on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME on Sunday, January 21, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
The series will also premiere on Paramount+ on January 19 in Canada, on January 20 in Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and later in the year in Japan.
Written and created by BAFTA Award nominee Joe Murtagh (Calm with Horses), The Woman in the Wall centers on Lorna Brady (Wilson), a woman from the small, fictional Irish town of Kilkinure, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house.
Chillingly, Lorna has no idea who the dead woman is or if she, herself, might be responsible for the apparent murder. That’s because Lorna has long suffered from extreme bouts of sleepwalking ever since she was ripped from her life at the age of 15 and incarcerated in The Kilkinure Convent, a (fictional) home to one of Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries for women.
There, Lorna gave birth to her daughter Agnes, who cruelly was taken from her and whose fate Lorna never knew. Detective Colman Akande (McCormack) is now on Lorna’s tail for a crime seemingly unrelated to the body she has discovered in her house.
His scathing wit hides a quiet sadness, and when he meets Lorna, he finds himself forced to confront his own haunting secrets. As Colman searches for a murderer and Lorna searches for her daughter, their paths collide in ways they never could have anticipated.
The series also stars Simon Delaney (The Conjuring 2), Philippa Dunne (The Nevers), Mark Huberman (Band of Brothers), Hilda Fay (Float Like a Butterfly), Frances Tomelty (The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard), Dermot Crowley (Luther: The Fallen Sun), and Fiona Bell (Shetland).
The Woman in the Wall is produced by Motive Pictures for SHOWTIME and The BBC. In addition, the series is executive produced by Simon Maxwell (Get Millie Black, Deep State), Sam Lavender (Saint Maud, The Lobster), Murtagh, Wilson (Mrs. Wilson, True Things), and Harry Wootliff (True Things).
The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.
“Lorna Brady is a complex and fascinating character, and I’m thrilled to help bring her to life,” said Ruth Wilson previously. “In The Woman in the Wall, Joe has created both an enthralling gothic thriller and a moving examination of the legacy of The Magdalene Laundries. It’s a privilege to bring this story to screens.”
“My family is from Mayo, the county in which the fictional Kilkinure is set, and it deeply frustrates and saddens me that it feels so few people have heard of the Laundries that existed across Ireland,” said Joe Murtagh.
Murtagh added: “I hope that by making something that has the familiarity of a genre piece, we are able to shed some light on the awful things that occurred within these kinds of institutions and introduce this history to the wider public so that nothing like it may ever happen again.”
You can watch the official trailer on YouTube, and you’ll find the key art below. Let us know in the comments if you’re looking forward to the series.
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills in 2018 to cover the latest news on streaming, movies, TV, and video games.