ITV has released a trailer for new series A Spy Among Friends ahead of the launch of the broadcaster’s new streamer ITVX on December 8.
The six part series, created by executive producer Alexander Cary alongside ITV Studios’ Patrick Spence and Nick Murphy, dramatises the true story of the British spies and lifelong friends, Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby.
The show is based on the New York Times best-selling book of the same title, written by the historian and journalist Ben Macintyre, whose SAS: Rogue Heroes was the basis for the series of the same name currently on BBC iPlayer.
Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history, famous as part of the Cambridge Five - a spy ring that leaked British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and initial stages of the Cold War.
The story of loyalty, trust, betrayal and treachery, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, features a big name cast including Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, Anna Maxwell Martin and Stephen Kunken (The Handmaid’s Tale; Billions).
The show is among a series of new productions being rolled out in time for ITVX’s launch on December 8, including an adaptation of Sara Collins’s novel The Confessions of Frannie Langton, a final special of Plebs and Tell Me Everything, a new teen drama focusing on a young man with undiagnosed depression and anxiety.
The streaming service also has a large range of original programming releases following its launch, which will come out on a weekly basis. Among the most anticipated drops is Litvinenko, starring David Tennant, following the sequence of events that led to the poisoning and eventual death of the prominent Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.
The show is set to be released on the new platform on December 15.
High-stakes family drama Riches, starring Deborah Ayorinde and Hugh Quarshie, is set to hit screens the following week on December 22, while psychological thriller Without Sin, starring Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure, is released the following week on December 28.
The platform will also launch with a catalogue of 250 feature films, including the Back to the Future trilogy and Despicable Me franchise. It will also feature a range of exclusively made documentaries, including A Year On Planet Earth, presented by Stephen Fry - a nature based history documentary with spellbinding stories from all over the world.
Other documentaries include Monster in My Family, which delves into the lives of serial killers, The Case Against Cosby - exposing new truths about accusations against the comedian, and Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight.
