What is new ITV drama Red Eye about?

Red Eye is the collision of three worlds – DC Hana Li (Jing Lusi), Journalist Jess Li (Jemma Moore) and MI5’s Madeline Delaney (Lesley Sharp). All three women are thrown into the same life threatening conspiracy when a British doctor (Richard Armitage) is arrested for murder upon flying home from Beijing.

Red Eye, told over an adrenaline-filled six parts on ITV1 and ITVX, is set between an all-night flight from London to Beijing, the streets of London, and the corridors of power within Whitehall. 

After attending a medical conference in Beijing and coming frighteningly close to dying in a car crash, Dr Matthew Nolan, played by Richard Armitage, arrives home and is immediately arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport.  A dead woman was discovered in his crashed car and, despite his protests that he was driving alone, Nolan must return to China to face charges.

DC Hana Li, played by Jing Lusi, is the no-nonsense, London officer charged with accompanying Nolan back to Beijing. Born in Hong Kong and with a traumatic past, she does not want to go. So, once ordered, her resentment for this assignment, and of Nolan himself, is intense.

However, when a first death occurs onboard, Hana begins to suspect foul play and she commences an investigation. Further deaths confirm that Nolan truly is in danger, and after a call from MI5, Hana finds herself embroiled in an escalating conspiracy.

Back in London, we follow Hana’s half-sister Jess Li, a scrappy journalist played by Jemma Moore, with whom Hana has a fractious relationship. Trying to cash in on Hana’s assignment, Jess runs her own investigation into Nolan’s extradition and finds herself on the run from a lethal, unknown assassin.

And in Thames House, the head of MI5, Madeline Delaney, played by Lesley Sharp,breaks protocol and risks her entire career to not only help Hana and Nolan stay alive, but to expose an international conspiracy that seems to implicate both China and people in her own government for the murders on flight 357.