Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Bletchley Circle star Anna Maxwell-Martin will play Merrily Watkins in “master of horror writing” Stephen Volk’s adaptation of Phil Rickman’s Midwinter of the Spirit, about to start shooting in the Hereford area for ITV.

David Threlfall, Siobhan Finneran, Ben Bailey Smith, Leila Mimmack. Kate Dickie, Simon Trinder, Oengus MacNamara and David Sterne will also star.

Midwinter of the Spirit will be directed by Richard Clark. Executive producer Kieran Roberts said: “We’re very excited to be going into production on Midwinter of the Spirit, especially with such an amazing cast. We’re also thrilled that Stephen Volk’s superb adaptation of Phil Rickman’s gripping and chilling novel is one of the first original commissions for ITV Encore.”

The official ITV description notes that Merrily Watkins is “a single mother who isn’t your average country vicar. Merrily’s newly acquired training has put her on the dark side of the pulpit. She’s become one of the few women priests working as an exorcist – a job increasingly mistrusted by the modern Church and rarely talked about, even though it operates in virtually every diocese in the UK. Merrily is deeply human in her doubts and scepticism, but her knowledge of the paranormal underworld brings her to the notice of local police who need her advice in the investigation of a grisly murder… Merrily becomes convinced that Satanists are operating in the city.”