The Long Shadow, ITV1's true-crime drama about the victims and survivors of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, has had us gripped for the first five episodes but by the sixth episode, you finally meet the infamous Yorkshire Ripper serial killer on screen for the first time.
In episode 4, a taxi driver called Terry Hackworth, played by Ian Lloyd Anderson, is arrested and accused of carrying out the Yorkshire Ripper murders. He's intensely questioned but he wasn't the right man. Episode 6 of The Long Shadow will show Sutcliffe for the first time.
Between 1975 and 1980, evil killer Sutcliffe terrorised Yorkshire, killing 13 women, including Emily Jackson played by Katherine Kelly in The Long Shadow, and leaving seven more lucky to be alive after they were subjected to his brutal attacks.
But who is joining The Long Shadow cast and stepping into the notorious murderer’s shoes in episode 6? The answer is none other than Mark Stobbart, who you might recognize as DS Neil Twyler from the fourth series of Line of Duty, back in 2012. Neil was part of a team led by Thandie Newton’s DCI Roz Huntley but began to suspect his boss of wrongdoing.
Luckily, Mark is no stranger to true crime as well as fictional police shows, having also played Neil ‘Robbo’ Robson in this year’s drama series The Hunt for Raoul Moat.
The actor started his career in the 2002 reboot of the 1980s series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, in which he played drag queen Rod Osborne, the son of Jimmy Nail’s character Oz.
He then went on to appear in shows such as Is Harry On the Boat?, Reps and The Last Detective before landing the role of PC Martin Clark in the BBC TV series 55 Degrees North.
Mark also played Lee in the series The Silence, alongside Douglas Henshall and Dervla Kirwan, and in 2013 he starred in the series Utopia, which focused on a group of people who discovered a graphic novel that seems to predict future disasters. He’s guest starred in numerous hit TV shows, including Little Britain, Vera, Doctors and Moving On, and also has film credits to his name.
In 2014 Mark played a character called Jarvis in the film Almost Married, which starred Emily Atack and Philip McGinley, and five years later, he appeared in the bodybuilding movie Muscle, which starred Craig Fairbrass as personal trainer Terry.
Mark’s also been in the films Teen Spirit, The Devil Outside, Disobedience, Harrigan and The Tournament, which starred Robert Carlyle.
After landing his big role in Line of Duty season 4, Mark went on to play Julian in the drama Clink. The series, set in a women’s prison, told of an unlikely sisterhood between some of the inmates and starred Alicya Eyo, Katherine Rose Morley, Christine Tremarco and Lu Corfield.
Mark also starred in the comedy series No Offence with Joanna Scanlan, Will Mellor and Elaine Cassidy.
Unsurprisingly, his career is currently showing no signs of slowing down and he is due to appear in the upcoming Ken Loach movie, The Chelsea Cowboy, which stars Warren Brown, Sadie Frost and Poppy Delevingne and tells the story of an underworld hardman turned actor.
The Long Shadow airs on Mondays at 9pm on ITV1. The whole series is also available to watch on ITVX.
