The Bay stars, Daniel Ryan and Leanne Best, both appeared on James Martin’s Saturday Morning show
The Bay: Daniel Ryan says new series is the best yet
The Bay star Daniel Ryan has teased the upcoming series five ahead of Sunday’s debut episode.
The actor, 57, who plays D.I. Tony Manning, joined co-star Leanne Best, who plays Julie Ashworth, on James Martin’s Saturday Morning show.
As talk got onto The Bay series five, which starts on Sunday 2 March at 9pm on ITV, Daniel made a surprise admission. The actor said of each season getting ‘better and better’: “It just looks better and better, I think the stories get better and better.”
He added: “This one is, I mean Leanne is absolutely heartbreaking in this one, I think I’ve been quoted before as saying it’s the best one. It is the best, this is the best one we’ve ever done!”
It comes as The Bay has made a huge change ahead of its new series – as family liaison officer Jenn Townsend deals with a new case.
The fifth series will see Jenn, played by Marsha Thomason, navigate the death of a 23-year-old university student.
Hannah is found dead on the edge of the docks and Morecambe’s finest police team are immediately set to work on discovering what happened to her and why she died – as Jenn, who is battling her own grief following the death of her father, liaises with the family.
Speaking about the new series, Daragh Carville, the co-creator and writer, has revealed the show is doing a never before done storyline this time around.
He told the Mirror: “This core thing about The Bay, which separates it from other crime dramas, is that it is also a family drama. At the heart, it is an emotional story about family.
“And so, when thinking about a new series, I really think about who the family will be. Because the USP about The Bay is it is about a family liaison officer. In every season, there’s a new crime and therefore a new family for Jenn to get to know. I start really thinking about the family and as they say, also thinking about what have we done before, what we haven’t done before.”
He added: “What are the areas we haven’t quite explored. So I thought a divided family would be interesting. So in series five, we meet a family that has been through a divorce and a bitter separation. That makes life more difficult for Jenn and the police as they investigate the death of the family’s daughter, and work with this splintered and fractured family. That was the starting point.”
The Bay series five airs tonight at 9pm on ITV and ITV X.