Bridgerton actress Adjoa Andoh is set to star in a new six-part ITV crime drama, Protect and Serve, playing a detective committed to pursuing the truth despite the challenges in her path. The series, set in Leeds, follows DI Araba Dadzie as she investigates the fatal shooting of a teenage boy who had been residing in a privately owned children's care home with his brother since his grandfather became unwell.
Plot and Character Details
ITV has revealed: "This bittersweet police drama explores the pressures faced by DI Araba Dadzie, a cop, a mother and a daughter. She's a woman in that squeezed middle, juggling profession, elderly parents and children, and a woman of colour in the police force, who has risen through the ranks of her profession and knows what it costs for her to stay there. Protect and Serve draws Araba into the national scandal of Britain's unregulated children's care homes, a scandal she cannot ignore."
ITV teases further: "With a reputation as a fearsome investigator, it's taken unrelenting focus, a bleak sense of humour, a passionate love for the job and personal sacrifice for Araba to stay at the top of her game. Uncompromising and often obsessive, she is driven by her desire to offer protection to the vulnerable and retribution to those criminally abusing their power in the city she loves."
Adjoa Andoh's Comments
Adjoa said: "How does a woman juggle an aging father, a chippy student daughter and a non-existent sex life, while investigating murders as a black female cop. That's the lot of DI Araba Dadzie, Senior Investigation Officer on a Homicide and Major Enquiry Team in central Leeds. It's a job that costs, a job that we the public need, and in spite of the challenges, it's a job Araba feels called to, much like a priest or a teacher."
She added: "Protect and Serve our crime show is set in the great city of Leeds. I love this city and I love the city's football club Leeds United. I lived in Leeds as a child and half my English family have been Yorkshire sheep farmers going back to the 1600's - hence the setting. I am thrilled by the team behind Protect and Serve. Polly Hill at ITV, Big Talk Studios, Jenny van der Lande, and fabulous writer Helen Black of Time fame. As mothers the national disgrace of our unregulated children's homes is something we are all shocked by."
Production Team and Reaction
ITV Director of Drama Polly Hill stated: "I'm delighted to commission Protect and Serve as I have been wanting to find a show with Adjoa Andoh for some time. We have a shared ambition, together with Big Talk, to make a great police series that also has something to say. Helen Black's scripts uncover the scandal in privatised children's care homes while Araba lets us see what cost there is to becoming a high ranking black policewoman. It's a show we are very proud to be making for ITV with such a great team."
Following the announcement of the series, one viewer remarked: "So excited for this." Another commented: "Yes another decent drama." "This will be good!" a third wrote, while someone else agreed: "I can't wait!" "ITV you win," another person added.
