Looking for a new crime drama series to get your heart valves pumping and brain wheels turning? Murder, mystery and morality collide in The Woman In the Wall, a gripping six-part BBC thriller that is making its stateside cable TV debut tonight.
Though the gothic detective series first aired on BBC One back in August 2023, The Woman in the Wall will make its American TV premiere on Sunday, January 21 at 9pm Eastern on Showtime. Cord-cutters can also tune into Showtime via a live TV streaming service, like Hulu with Live TV, Fubo, Sling TV and YouTube TV. Episodes, which will drop weekly, will also be available to stream with a Paramount Plus subscription.
The Woman in the Wall cast is led by Ruth Wilson (His Dark Materials, The Affair) as Lorna Brady, an Irish woman who wakes up to find a corpse in her house. Not only does Lorna have no idea who the dead woman is, she is also unsure if she herself is responsible for the apparent murder. That's because Lorna has suffered from extreme bouts of sleepwalking ever since she was incarcerated as a teenager in the fictional Kilkinure Convent, modeled on the real-life Magdalene Laundries.
Ireland's Magdalene Laundries were institutions run by the Catholic Church from the 18th century until the late 1990s. These asylums took in so-called "fallen women"—sex workers, unwed mothers or anyone else the church deemed problematic—but really operated as penitentiary workhouses where the women horrifically underwent back-breaking unpaid labor and physical and sexual abuse by those in charge.
Irish actor Daryl McCormack—best known for series like Peaky Blinders and The Wheel of Time and the movie Good Luck to You, Leo Grande—co-stars as Colman Akande, the detective investigating the case.
Ruth Wilson, who also serves as an executive producer on the drama, said of the series: “Lorna Brady is a complex and fascinating character and I’m thrilled to help bring her to life. In The Woman in the Wall, Joe Murtagh has created both an enthralling gothic thriller and a moving examination of the legacy of The Magdalene Laundries. It’s a privilege to bring this story to TV screens."
The actress continued: "I hope people are gripped and moved. But I also hope that it encourages people to dig deeper and read about the Magdalene Laundries and the mother and baby homes and understand on a different level the experiences these women went through."
