Tall Tales & Murders, the BBC’s upcoming dark comedic crime drama, has its first-look footage out, with Black Doves star Ella-Lily Hyland leading a cast that includes Game of Thrones‘ Aidan Gillen and Peaky Blinders‘ Packy Lee in what is shaping up to be one of the more gleefully unhinged commissions of the autumn.
Hyland plays Bridget, a night nurse at a Dublin nursing home whose approach to the job sits somewhere between unconventional and outright alarming. She is equally content reading the elderly residents bedtime horror stories as she is, in the show’s own words, euthanising them, if they ask nicely. It is that tone, sharp and darkly funny, that runs through the whole series.
Tall Tales & Murders BBC: the plot that sets everything in motion
Things take a turn when Paul, played by Casey Walsh, a petty criminal desperate to stay out of prison, lands a legitimate shift at the nursing home. On their very first night together, a mysterious comatose patient suddenly wakes up. That patient is played by Aidan Gillen, and his character, the long-lost gangster Grinner McNair, wastes no time before teasing that he has left a buried hoard of Celtic gold somewhere out there in the world.
Whether the treasure is real or not is, pointedly, left open. But for Bridget and Paul, the possibility is enough. The gold would clear Bridget’s financial troubles and allow Paul to repay his debts to crime boss Ma Baker, played by Derry Girls‘ Philippa Dunne. The series describes their ensuing adventure as a ‘Bonnie and Clyde-style’ romp, and the first-look footage suggests it earns that billing.
They are not, of course, the only ones hunting for it. Gangster Wesley Swanson, played by Packy Lee, is also on the trail, and his presence ensures things stay dangerous as well as funny.
The cast, the source material and who is behind the camera
The ensemble rounds out with Brian Doherty as Bunny Ryan, described in the series as Paul’s ‘guardian-angel-of-sorts’ and an irascible detective, and Aisling O’Sullivan as the Matron of Bridget’s nursing home.
The series is adapted from the nine-book Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell, which gives the writers a deep well of material to draw from. It has been co-created by Stuart Carolan, the creator of Love/Hate, alongside Chris Addison, and is a co-commission from BBC Northern Ireland and RTÉ, in association with Screen Ireland.
On the production side, Variety reports that the series is produced by Avalon in association with Metropolitan Pictures, a detail that speaks to the scale of the backing behind what might otherwise be filed as a niche Irish co-production. Avalon’s involvement puts it alongside a roster of comedy-leaning projects with genuine international reach.
That ambition tracks with the source material. McDonnell’s Dublin Trilogy has built a following well beyond Ireland, and the combination of Stuart Carolan’s track record with Irish crime drama and the BBC and RTÉ partnership gives the series a platform to match.
Ella-Lily Hyland, meanwhile, is arriving at this project off the back of her role in Black Doves, which drew considerable attention when it landed. Playing a character as wilfully strange as Bridget is a very different kind of assignment, and the footage suggests she is leaning into it fully.
Tall Tales & Murders airs on BBC One and BBC One Northern Ireland this autumn.
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