BBC Northern Ireland

Messiah is a British television drama series, broadcast on the BBC One network and produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland, although the series itself is set in England. Made up of a series of occasional serials, the first, with two parts subtitled The First Killings & The Reckoning, was broadcast in 2001. It has been followed by Messiah 2: Vengeance is Mine, Messiah III: The Promise, Messiah IV: The Harrowing and most recently Messiah V: The Rapture. The original production was based on a novel by Boris Starling: the subsequent installments have been written directly for television. Starling has a cameo as a murder victim’s corpse in the first serial.

A crime series, it follows the investigations of DCI Red Metcalfe, who often investigates particularly gruesome murders. Metcalfe is played by Scottish actor Ken Stott, and the other main regulars in the series are Kate Beauchamp, Duncan Warren and Metcalfe’s wife Susan. The deafness of Forbes’ character necessitated both her and Stott learning British Sign Language for their characters’ frequent exchanges.