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Richard Dormer will play Sam Vimes in BBC America’s new series The Watch based on the Ankh Morpork Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

Adam Hugill (1917), Jo Eaton-Kent (Don’t Forget The Driver), Marama Corlette (Blood Drive), Lara Rossi (Crossing Lines) and Sam Adewunmi (The Last Tree) have also been cast.

Eaton-Kent plays Constable Cheery, the ingenious non-binary forensics expert, ostracized by their kin and finding a new home and identity. Hugill is Constable Carrot, the idealistic new recruit, raised by dwarfs, but really a human abandoned at birth. Corlette plays the mysterious Corporal Angua who is tasked with Carrot’s training and keeping the rookie alive. Rossi is Lady Sybil Ramkin, last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility, who’s trying to fix the city’s wrongs with her chaotic vigilantism. (Fans of the books will know many of the secrets these characters hold.)

Adewunmi plays the wounded and wronged Carcer Dun, out to hijack destiny itself, take control of the city and exact a terrible revenge on an unjust reality.

According to Dormer, “I’m so thrilled to be part of this brilliant madness and mayhem. I was immediately drawn to the multitude of layers to Sam Vimes, and I find the dynamic between him and his band of disenfranchised comrades very compelling.”

Producer Sarah Barnett said, “The Watch will be a very BBC America show. As with Killing Eve, we don’t go straight at an adaptation – we blur genres, undercut with humor, and hire the most genius writers and actors to create stories and characters that are both entertaining and very contemporary, that say something new. Richard Dormer will kill it as Sam Vines, not your everyday male anti-hero. Simon Allen and Rob Wilkins approach this adaptation with the kind of iconoclastic energy and open-hearted love that will truly honor the indelible legacy of Sir Terry.”

Lead writer Simon Allen added, “Sir Terry Pratchett is in the bloodstream of popular culture. He has a distinctly British kind of literary heart and humor, but his ideas are defiantly human and universal. It’s been such a privilege to work with our world-class director, producers and writers on building a television show that honors his legacy while striking out on its own in his name and spirit. Like the man whose genius inspired it, The Watch is a hopeful show that believes it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I can’t wait for everybody to see our joyously brilliant cast light candles and, of course, flamethrowers.” Other writers include Joy Wilkinson, Catherine Tregenna, Amrou Al-Khadi  and Ed Hime. The series is co-produced with BBC Studios and Narrativia

The series will start filming in Cape Town next month for release next year.