As Slow Horses season 5 ends Down Cemetery Road from Mick Herron begins on Apple TV+: Plot, cast, episodes & locations
Could Zoë Boehm be the natural successor to Jackson Lamb?
Down Cemetery Road is Apple TV+’s latest attempt to spin Slow Horses author Mick Herron’s work into a streaming sensation, and its premiere coincides with the espionage show’s season 5 finale.
With the arrival of Zoë Boehm, Apple is wasting no time at all in treating subscribers to another of Mick’s creations. She’s from the same acerbic school as Jackson Lamb and appears in four of the writer’s books.
Here’s everything you need to know about Down Cemetery Road, including plot, cast, filming locations and release date.
Down Cemetery Road: What’s it about?
The official log line for Down Cemetery Road is as follows: “When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbour Sarah Trafford becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm.
“Zoë and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.”
Down Cemetery Road cast headlined by Emma Thompson
Leading the charge in Apple TV+’s latest capering crime thriller is Dame Emma Thompson. She plays private investigator Zoë Boehm.
A two-time Oscar winner – for Best Actress in 1992 and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1996 – she’s been on our screens for more than four decades.
Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Karen in Love Actually, and Nanny McPhee are just a selection of her most popular characters. In 2022, she followed in the footsteps of Pam Ferris by playing the cantankerous Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical.
Like many of Hollywood’s elite, Emma’s TV work is a mere footnote on her shiny resume. Prior to Down Cemetery Road, the biggest serialised project she’d taken on was Russell T Davies’ Years and Years.
Flanking Emma’s spiky-haired gumshoe is Ruth Wilson as Sarah Tucker. Best known for her recurring psychopath Alice Morgan in the detective series Luther, she has close to 40 acting credits.
Saving Mr Banks, Locke, The Lone Ranger, and The Little Stranger featured her in roles of varying significance.
Between 2014 and 2019, Ruth portrayed Alison Bailey in The Affair, before antagonising Dafne Keen’s Lyra Belacqua as Mrs Coulter in three series of His Dark Materials.
Sherwood’s Adeel Akhtar is involved
Adeel Akhtar has been cast in Down Cemetery Road as the character Hamza.
The star’s greatest cinematic successes have come as Faisal in Four Lions and Ali in Ali & Ava.
On the box, though, is where he’s really shone. Catch him in Channel 4’s Utopia, or the BBC’s The Night Manager, and Murdered by My Father. Adeel won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2022 for his role as Andy Fisher in Sherwood. And of course there’s his portrayal of Inspector Lestrade in Netflix film Enola Holmes 2.
Meanwhile, his Utopia co-star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett also has a place in the Down Cemetery Road cast on Apple TV+. He’s credited as Downey in the show.
For four series of Misfits, Nathan appeared as time-manipulator Curtis Donovan. He later stopped by Doctor Who episode Revolution of the Daleks as Leo Rugazzi, plus last year’s Black Doves on Netflix.
Completing this eye-grabbing cast is Baby Reindeer’s Tom Goodman-Hill as Gerard and The Outlaws’ Darren Boyd. Tom Riley, Adam Godley, Sinead Matthews, Ken Nwosu, Aiysha Hart and Steven Cree are in there too.
Down Cemetery Road on Apple TV+: Is it based on a book?
The new Apple TV+ series is adapted from Mick Herron’s debut novel of the same name, which was published in 2003.
Its protagonist Zoë would return for three more cases on the page. They were 2004’s The Last Voice You Hear, 2006’s Why We Die and 2009’s Smoke and Whispers.
Should Down Cemetery Road prove popular with fans, we can expect each of those sequels to be dramatised.
Where was the new series filmed?
Filming for Down Cemetery Road kicked off in June 2024 and used University of Bristol as one of its locations.
Cameras also rolled at Somerset’s Bishops Lydeard train station (doubling for the fictional Loch Forden stop). The village of Street and Polperro in Cornwall welcomed the production too, as did Bristol’s St Nicholas Market, Corn Street and City Hall.
How many episodes are there and where can you watch?
Down Cemetery Road consists of eight episodes in total, although their durations are unknown.
You can watch the show exclusively on Apple TV+, the platform behind Severance.
For non-subscribers, you can now enjoy a seven-day free trial. After that, an Apple TV+ subscription will cost you £9.99 per month.
Down Cemetery Road release date
Apple TV+ is releasing the first two instalments of Down Cemetery Road on the same day as Slow Horses’ season 5 finale.
That day is Wednesday, October 29, with the remaining six episodes dropping on the streamer weekly.
Read more: Slow Horses season 5: Who was John Usher? Apple TV+ honours him in end-of-credits tribute
