ITV announce Christmas highlights including new Martin Clunes county lines drama

ITV has announced its Christmas highlights this year, including two huge new crime dramas and the final ever series of Vera.

County lines drug-dealing and an escalating and insidious crime wave sweeping the British countryside are the subject of new drama Out There, starring Martin Clunes as a farmer confronted with dark forces seeping into his rural community.

The drama will depict the stealthy and surreptitious invasion of the land our farmer cherishes with devastating consequences as his livelihood, homestead and family life are threatened by local county lines drugs dealers who are essentially urban gangs using the British countryside as a field of operations and moving drugs and money between their inner-city hubs and provincial areas.

Happy Valley star James Norton leads another original drama, Playing Nice. Set against a sweeping Cornish landscape, two couples discover that their toddlers were switched at birth in a hospital mix-up and face a horrifying dilemma: do they keep the sons they have raised and loved or reclaim their
biological child?

Living a waking nightmare, Pete (James Norton) and Maddie (Niamh Algar) are jettisoned into the world of the other couple Miles (James McArdle) and Lucy (Jessica Brown Findlay). At first it seems all four are agreed on a solution, but it soon becomes clear that hidden motives are at play – how far can each couple trust the real parents of their child or even each other? As Pete and Maddie are stretched to breaking point, they realise that they will stop at nothing to keep their family together.

Brenda Blethyn reprises her role as Vera for two final, feature-length episodes. In the first episode, DCI Vera Stanhope is called to the banks of the Tyne where the body of a young man has been discovered by some anglers. A tangled web of a broken relationship, secret love, grudges, regret, and fraud begins to emerge – has our former inmate been served cold justice, or does his death run deeper?

The final episode brings Vera back to a familiar place when a body is found at the foot of legendary local stones The Dark Wives – with memories of childhood in the background, Vera must work hard to uncover the mystery of why a bright young student would be violently attacked and left so far from home. This poignant episode weaves together past and present and makes for a compelling and emotional farewell.

Viewers seeking some more light-hearted entertainment can enjoy Christmas specials of 1% Club, Deal Or No Deal, The Masked Singer, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Wheel of Fortune.