The Jetty: Recently widowed DC Ember Manning suspects there’s a predator targeting underage girls
It’s a big year for Jenna Coleman.
The former Emmerdale and Doctor Who star is lined up to appear and executive produce The War Rooms, a series about the women who worked in Winston Churchill’s bunker during the Second World War. More importantly, she’s about to tackle an altogether different role – that of mother; she’s currently expecting her first child with film-maker Jamie Childs, whom she met on the set of The Sandman in 2020.
Before either of those events happen, viewers can see her in The Jetty, a new four-part thriller in which Coleman plays recently widowed rookie detective Ember Manning, which is showing on both Monday and Tuesday evening. It is her first project for the Beeb since 2021’s The Serpent.
“I’m delighted to be returning to the BBC to be a part of The Jetty, bringing the story of Ember Manning to life,” says the star. “I look forward to exploring (writer) Cat Jones’ darkly probing scripts, alongside (director) Marialy Rivas’ eloquent vision.”
The series has been filmed in Coleman’s birth county of Lancashire (she’s from Blackpool), and begins as a fire tears through a holiday home by a picturesque lake.
But how does that connect with a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case, and the illicit ‘love’ triangle between a twenty-something man and two underage girls? Unfortunately, Ember’s efforts to answer that question could cost her far more than she realised. Soon, she’s re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about her past, the present and the place she regards as her home.
“I’m thrilled to be making The Jetty for BBC One,” claims Jones, whose CV also includes episodes of Harlots, EastEnders and Waterloo Road. “Like millions of people all over the world, I’ve grown up loving and admiring BBC dramas, so getting to create one really is a dream come true.
“The Jetty is a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. What feels like a total dream team features director Marialy Rivas and the brilliant Jenna Coleman. I’ve no doubt audiences are going to be completely transfixed by her as Ember.”
Executive producer Elizabeth Kilgariff (who previously worked with Coleman on The Cry) adds: “Provocative, thrilling and deliciously surprising at every turn, Cat’s beautiful scripts promise to take the audience on a rollercoaster ride where nothing is quite as it seems. To have the opportunity to work with Jenna again – and see her bring our complex, funny and utterly human heroine Ember to life on BBC One – couldn’t be more exciting.”
Amanda Bullimore, Michael McNulty, Ralph Ineson and Ruby Stokes are among the supporting cast breathing life into a story the BBC describes “as much a coming-of-age story as a detective thriller,” one that “asks big questions about sexual morality, identity and memory, in the places that Me Too has left behind.”
It sounds as if it might not just be a big year for Coleman – if The Jetty lives up to the hype, it could be the Beeb’s biggest new drama of the year.