The BBC crime drama Sherwood will not return after its third series. Creator James Graham has announced plans for the programme, which features Lesley Manville and David Morrissey, to end with a final series expected to air early next year.
Final Series Announcement
Speaking on the launch episode of the Sky News podcast Backstory with Cathy Newman, Graham said: "We've finished it, we've edited it, and it will be the last series, and it will be out in January, February time."
Sherwood is set in a Nottinghamshire mining village and is based loosely on real life murders which took place in the city in 2004. The fictional story starts with the murder of a former union activist, Gary Jackson, and follows how the death impacts the wider community and has a connection with the miners' strike.
Fan Reaction and Returning Cast
Fans rushed to social media, devastated over the end of the show. One fan wrote: "I have been so thrilled for another season of #Sherwood because DCS Ian St Clair is my roman empire! But I am so gutted to hear its the last season, I thought it would go on for at least 6 whole seasons."
Sherwood's third season will see the original actors return including Lesley Manville and David Morrissey. Graham said of the upcoming season: "[What's] been really lovely is to get original actors back – people like Lesley Manville, David Morrissey, Lorraine Ashbourne, from the first series bringing back Claire Rushbrook, Robert Glenister. People, just even saying their names, you go, 'Why are you working with me? I feel so lucky.'"
New Cast and Other Work
Riot Women star Rosalie Craig and Game of Thrones actor Joe Dempsie are set to star in the new series as "a brand new family that I put through a brand new trauma". Graham added: "We really put these guys through the wringer, but it's very exciting. They are great Nottingham actors to tell a Nottinghamshire story."
As well as Sherwood, Graham also worked on Dear England, a hit play and TV series about Gareth Southgate's work to transform the England men's football team. "I think like a lot of people, I noticed that it just felt immediately different," he said of his decision to write the play. "Southgate's conduct, the new generation of players, the new values and attitudes they carried with them. This wasn't the traditional football I remembered, which was more aggressive. These guys had a nobility, a compassion and a decency which I thought was really striking. I was curious about how anyone can go into an old institution and begin to change its values and culture so quickly."
