Jimmy McGovern announces Australian convict drama Banished

Jimmy McGovern has defined his own brand of humanistic British crime drama with Cracker, The Lakes and Accused – now he turns his attentions to the former colonies. His next BBC drama is Banished, set in 18th-century Australia and centered on the lives of a group of convicts.

A BBC statement describes the series as exploring "the lives, loves, relationships and battle for survival of a group of convicts, the soldiers who guard them and the men who govern them in the early days of this settlement". It stars Russell Tovey, known for his roles in Him & Her and The History Boys as well as current HBO gay drama Looking, playing a convict who struggles on his arrival at the penal colony. He forms bonds with other cons played by MyAnna Buring (Downton Abbey) and Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing); David Wenham, who played Faramir in the Lord of the Rings movies, will play a governor whose idealism causes tension with a brutal army major.

McGovern himself added: "How the first convicts survived is the best story I've come across in over 30 years as a dramatist. When you've got something like that, you don't worry about the narrative; you just concentrate on the characters. That is what we did. Consequently I don't think I've ever written anything so character-driven."

Filming begins in April on location in Australia, with the drama reaching BBC2 in early 2015.