Adjoa Andoh, best known to global audiences as Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, will co-create and star in a new ITV crime series titled Protect and Serve, a working title. The six-part drama was unveiled on November 12, 2026, with Andoh leading as Detective Inspector Araba Dadzie, a senior investigator navigating the demands of policing, family and identity in contemporary Britain. Deadline first reported the commission.
Conceived by Andoh alongside screenwriter Helen Black, the series is produced by Big Talk Studios, part of ITV Studios, with international distribution also handled by ITV Studios. Set in Leeds, Protect and Serve opens with the fatal shooting of a teenage boy who had been living in a privately run children’s care home. The case draws Dadzie and her squad into the fraught world of unregulated facilities for vulnerable young people, a system the drama intends to scrutinise with empathy and bite. “How does a woman juggle an aging father, a student daughter and no sex life, while investigating murders as a Black female cop,” Andoh said, outlining the personal stakes that anchor her character.
ITV’s Director of Drama, Polly Hill, who will oversee the project for the broadcaster, framed the show as both genre entertainment and social inquiry. She described Protect and Serve as “a great police series that also has something to say,” praising Black’s research-led scripts and the creation of a detective audiences “will take to their hearts.” The production team includes executive producers Kenton Allen, Andoh and Black, with Jenny van der Lande and Chris Clough also attached. Nimer Rashed, fresh from steering Harlan Coben thrillers, will direct, while Stella Nwimo produces. Filming is scheduled to begin in early 2027.
Black, whose career has spanned crime fiction and legal advocacy for children in care, draws on first-hand insight to chart the human cost of profit-driven provision. That provocation places Protect and Serve within a crowded but evolving British procedural field, one that remains a staple for Nigerian viewers who track UK drama on satellite and streaming. With Leeds as its canvas and a lead who understands the institutions she serves and resists, Andoh’s first created series signals intent: to entertain while holding power to account. Expect further casting news in the months ahead, and a production that seeks resonance beyond Yorkshire’s precincts to audiences far afield.
0 Comments