Channel 4, Sony Pictures Television and Playground reveal first look at Glenn Close as ‘Maud Oldcastle’ in UP TO NO GOOD

Tanya Reynolds, Mathew Baynton, Iain Glen and Richard E. Grant join the cast.

Channel 4, Sony Pictures Television and Playground today reveal a first look at Glenn Close as ‘Maud Oldcastle’ in UP TO NO GOOD.

Based on Helene Tursten’s short story collections An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, the upcoming six-part drama is written by acclaimed playwrights Nina Raine (Bach & Sons, Consent) and Moses Raine (Donkey Heart), marking the first original television series created by the duo. The series is directed by Lee Haven Jones (A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, Y Sŵn) and developed and produced by Playground for Sony Pictures Television, who will distribute the series globally.

The production also confirms that Tanya Reynolds (Emma and Sex Education), Mathew Baynton (Wonka and Ghosts), Iain Glen (Game of Thrones and Jack Taylor), Raphaël Acloque (The Corsican Line, Little Birds), Nadia Albina (A Thousand Blows and Bookish), Louisa Binder (Hotel Portofino), Meg Ballamy (The Crown), Madeleine Mantock (The Long Song, Into the Badlands), Peter Egan (Unforgotten, After Life), and Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Saltburn) have joined the cast. 

They join Glenn Close alongside previously announced cast including Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton, Toxic Town) as Hannah, Gloria Obianyo (Andor, Anxious People) as Astrid, Anita Dobson (EastEnders, Doctor Who) as Elsa, Ben Crompton (Game of Thrones, Lockwood & Co.) as Barry, Meera Syal (The Wheel of Time, The Revenge Club) as Margaret, and Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey, After Life) as Charlotte.

The series follows Maud Oldcastle (Close), a hilariously brusque, cantankerous, ruthless older woman - and those are her nice qualities. She is also a killer. Determined to break from a lifetime spent caring for her sister (Wilton), Maud sets out to claim a long-overdue second act, but when a suspicious young detective (Jessie) investigating a death in Maud’s building starts to believe there is more to her than meets the eye, Maud is forced to reckon with her crimes, present and past.

UP TO NO GOOD was commissioned for Channel 4 by Gwawr Lloyd, Interim Head of Drama, and Rebecca Holdsworth, Commissioning Editor, Drama, and is a Sony Pictures Television Production. Executive producers are Scott Huff and Colin Callender for Playground, alongside Glenn Close, Lee Haven Jones, Nina Raine and Moses Raine. The series producer is Morenike Williams (Killing Eve, Culprits).