{"id":37296,"date":"2023-09-27T15:50:57","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T13:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1897630"},"modified":"2023-09-28T08:07:24","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T06:07:24","slug":"line-of-duty-creator-jed-mercurio-on-what-sets-new-thriller-payback-apart","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/line-of-duty-creator-jed-mercurio-on-what-sets-new-thriller-payback-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio on what sets new thriller Payback apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morven Christie leads the cast of the upcoming series. <\/p>

By David Craig\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 27 September 2023 at 13:48 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Jed Mercurio has outlined what differentiates ITV thriller Payback<\/a> from other entries in the densely populated genre.<\/p>\n

The screenwriter, who is best known as the creator of Line of Duty<\/a>, serves as executive producer on the new series, which stars Morven Christie<\/a> as a widowed accountant forced into dealing with a dangerous crime boss.<\/p>\n

Mercurio worked alongside series creator Debbie O\u2019Malley on the premise, drawing some inspiration from the shocking Panama Papers leak, which prompted a shift in focus to a money laundering conspiracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that I think makes it really distinctive is that there\u2019s a storyline about financial crime,\u201d he explained, \u201cwhich is quite unusual in TV thrillers, but what Debbie has done brilliantly is to make it very understandable.<\/p>

\u201cAlso, it always relates back to the stakes of the story, which is that Lexie Noble is caught between a very dangerous organised crime gang led by Peter Mullan\u2019s character and a police organisation that are desperate to bring down his empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mullan plays Cal Morris, a financial criminal who has evaded justice on several occasions and makes it quite clear he has no qualms about killing in order to get his way.<\/p>\n

Line of Duty alum Prasanna Puwanarajah plays DC Jibran Khan, who is determined to bring Cal down at virtually any cost.<\/p>\n

\"Peter\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Peter Mullan as Cal Morris in Payback.<\/span><\/figcaption> HTM Television for ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cLexie is caught in the crossfire of that, and however complicated the financial side of things gets, we always circle back to that in a very visceral and easy-to-follow way,\u201d continued Mercurio.<\/p>\n

In Mercurio\u2019s opinion, the main character herself represents another way in which Payback deviates from crime drama norms.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe hit on the idea of developing something that was about an every-person character within a thriller \u2013 a very ordinary person who doesn\u2019t normally get embroiled in the subject matter of this type of series, which is organised crime and police procedural.\u201d<\/p>