New six-part drama Passenger premieres on Sunday, March 24. Viewers in UK can watch it for FREE on ITV1 and the ITVX streaming service. It is also available on BritBox in the US. But don't worry if you're away from home because you can watch Passenger from anywhere with a VPN.
Time: 9pm UK / 5pm ET / 2pm PT / 8am AEDT
UK: ITVX (free with licence fee)
US: Britbox
How to use a VPN to watch any stream
Written by Andrew Buchan, better known as an actor from his roles in Broadchurch and The Crown, Passenger is his screenwriting debut. It deals with the impact of a disappearance (and the mysterious reappearance) of a young woman in sleepy Cheddar Vale and the ripple effect in a small town community.
There are, of course, other unnatural events and a fish-out-of-water big city cop in the middle of it all but while that talks to us all about the experience of being an outsider in an alien environment, Buchan is keen to stress that fear in those who are at home in a small town is also a major theme.
"I've seen it in lads and lasses that I've been to school with," he says of his upbringing in a suburb of Bolton. "Fear of change, fear of being different, fear of daring to do something that they're good at..."
If you're ready to immerse yourself in the North of England, and its trademark non-conformist humor, here's where to watch Passenger online from anywhere.
How to watch Passenger FREE in the UK
How to watch Passenger in the US
The new six-part ITV drama Passenger is available via subscription on BritBox, which costs from $8.99 a month.
If you're a Brit visiting the US and want to stream the new drama on ITVX, good news, because you can use a VPN to watch the series just like you would at home. Full details below.
How to watch Passenger in Australia
Passenger will be available via subscription on BritBox, which costs from AU$9.99 a month.
If you're a Brit travelling Down Under, you can download a VPN to access ITVX and watch for free. Full details on how to do that just below.
Can I watch Passenger in New Zealand?
Unfortunately, ITV drama Passenger is not available to stream in New Zealand yet.
How to watch Passenger with a VPN
You can watch Passenger on ITVX by using a VPN – no matter where you are in the world!
Normally a streaming service will know where you are trying to tune in from and block you if you're not in the right country but a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an app that hides your location and means you can access your usual sports and entertainment services even while you're traveling abroad.
To save you spinning around the web looking, our favorite VPN is NordVPN
- Download the app at NordVPN
- Choose the location of the streaming service you want to watch (UK, US, etc)
- Navigate to the streaming service and start watching!
Passenger trailer
Passenger episode guide
- Episode 1 – Sunday, March 24
- Episode 2 – Sunday, March 31
- Episode 3 – Sunday, April 7
- Episode 4 – Sunday, April 14
- Episode 5 – Sunday, April 21
- Episode 6 – Sunday, April 28
All you need to know about Passenger
Who is in the cast of Passenger?
- Wunmi Mosaku as D.I Riya Ajunwa
- David Threlfall as Jim Bracknell
- Daniel Ryan as Derek Jackson
- Jo Hartley as Chief Constable Linda Markel
- Rowan Robinson as Katie Wells
- Barry Sloane as Eddie Wells
- Natalie Gavin as Joanne Wells
- Hubert Hanowicz as Jakub
- Arian Nik as Nish Chowdry
Where was Passenger filmed?
Passenger was filmed across the North of England around Cornholme, near Todmorden in West Yorkshire and various locations in Lancashire including the Mercury Hotel in Westhoughton and Haigh Hall in Wigan. Scenes were also filmed in Greenfield, Oldham and Saddleworth village.
Q&A with Writer and Creator Andrew Buchan
So, can you just tease what Passenger is about in a few sentences for us?
Passenger is about someone going missing in a small Lancashire village, the ripple effect of that on the community and how the town folds in on itself as a result. It’s set in a town called Chadder Vale, a tiny little pinprick of a village on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border nestled in this valley, it’s full of people just going about their business, full of small businesses, a place of safety, security, people who've lived there all their lives.
You’re an actor, well known for your roles in shows like Broadchurch, The Honourable Woman, The Crown, what made you want to go behind the camera and write your own drama?
People might not know, but I grew up in Bolton and obviously there's a rich vein of humour running through a lot of northern towns and having grown up in and amongst that and the way that people react specifically to extremes with humour has always interested and fascinated me. I thought if I could write something about a small, tight- knit community and kind of use some kind of extreme event to detonate that humour, then that might be interesting. That northern dialogue that I've heard and loved all my life, and the way people approach and react to huge events in a northern way has always made me laugh and interested me in equal measure. I just wanted to get it down on paper and hopefully create characters that feel real and true, that people can relate to and use that to explore these bigger things.
Could you tell us a little about David’s character, Jim?
So, the character of Jim, who's played by David Threlfall, is a fascinating character, I hope. One of the themes running through the show is outsiders and our definition of that, and what is an outsider? Is it someone who's come from 10 minutes away? Sometimes in the north that's true because everyone has a different accent and they wear their accent like they do a tracksuit and it's part of your identity, people are frowned upon because they're not actually from that village. They're from 15 minutes down the lane, and that's not a good thing. So, Jim is your typical outsider. Posh accent, if you will, and frowned upon by the village people. People butt up against him, don't like his vibe at all. And he's kind of wrecking the landscape with his job and so he's this real kind of a force to be reckoned with. What David has brought to that has been so exciting to watch, he is a man of so many ideas. He sends you these little emails late at night going, “well, I thought about this and this and this and this.” And I'm like, “yeah, go!” It's very flattering when an actor does that because it shows that they've not just taken the role for such and such a reason. They're properly wanting to invest in it and bring your idea to life, there's nothing better than that. He's just been phenomenal, and we feel very lucky to have him on board.
What about some of the younger cast?
I'd say the younger cast have blown me away, like, completely blown me away. We’ve got folk who are just out of drama school, people who are kind of semi-known. There are various double acts throughout the show such as the characters Katie and Lilly played by Rowan and Matilda or Nish and Ali played by Arian and Ella and both of those teams play off each other wonderfully well.
There's a kind of rhythm to it, I guess which I can hear very clearly in my head and one of the i opening scenes in the pub, with Katie and her sister, when I first watched that wide shot of those two, I was just, like, “That’s how I heard it in my head.” They bring so much energy to it and so much... there's a lot of dazzle to it.
Nish and Ali did the same they kind of play off each other beautifully. So, yeah, it's been brilliant to watch.
Why do you think somewhere like Lancashire is the perfect place to match the scale of this series?
Obviously there is the clichéd thing of ‘write what you know’. One of the things that I wrote when I pitched the series, I guess, was how, a lot of people in small towns, and I think particularly northern towns or working-class towns and villages tend to get on the hamster wheel as soon as they're born. They’re born and then there's that kind of pressure to become their dad and then become their granddad. And then it repeats and repeats and repeats. So, for anyone to suddenly break free from that and say, ‘I might go live in Paris’, rarely happens. I think it was important for us to reflect that in the landscape we found and choose a village that was kind of tucked away and kind of nestled in the hills with it rising either side. The place our brilliant location manager found has that, you’re in this little cosy bubble and you feel like no one would want to stray from that. It’s another character in the show.
Can you talk about some of the themes that run through Passenger?
I’d say one of the big themes isn't just about being an outsider, it's fear. I've grown up with it. I've seen it in lads and lasses that I've been to school with. Fear of change, fear of being different, fear of daring to do something that they're good at.
You know in life, particularly if you’re a guy from a certain environment you act in the way that you're meant to act, and there's a pressure on you to act and speak in a certain way and be tough. And that's your lot. So it’s about fear, the fear of change, growth, failure.
