BBC's Bookish Season 2 Brings Sherlock Reunion, Blackadder Legend, And A Castle Murder
Bookish season 2 is stacking the deck with some wild casting moves.
Bookish is back for season 2 and Mark Gatiss is packing it with ringers. If you like your period mysteries bouncing from seance rooms to Savile Row to a creepy German castle at Christmas, this one is dialing it up.
New guest stars (and who they are playing)
- Jason Watkins (McDonald & Dodds) as Harold Sneed, a medium
- Miranda Richardson (Blackadder) as Duchess Alberta
- Simon Callow (Doctor Who) as 'E'
- Rupert Graves (Sherlock) as Colonel Reggie Winters
- Claire Skinner (Outnumbered) as Mrs Calthrop
- Youssef Kerkour (Gavin & Stacey) as Yusuf
- Ricky Champ (EastEnders) as Kendall
- Allan Corduner (Tár) as Maxie Kleinmann
- Liza Sadovy (Patience) as Ruth Kleinmann
- Oli Fyne (Call the Midwife) as Hannah Kleinman
- Ingrid Oliver (The Thursday Murder Club) as Liesl Pohl
- John Hopkins (A Very Royal Scandal) as Guy Windjammer (yes, really)
Familiar faces
Rosie Cavaliero (Kaos), Gerard Horan (Belgravia: The Next Chapter), Nadia Albina (A Thousand Blows) and Jonas Nay (The Tattooist of Auschwitz) are all back from season 1. They join the returning core ensemble: Mark Gatiss, Polly Walker, Connor Finch, Elliot Levey, Blake Harrison and Buket Kömür.
What season 2 is actually about
Case 1: Book gets pulled into the world of spiritualism when he is asked to help on a strange case centered on medium Harold Sneed (Watkins). Expect table-rapping and trouble.
Case 2: Off Savile Row, the ever-practical Bliss ropes Book into a murder at a gentleman's outfitters. Elderly tailor Maxie Kleinmann (Corduner) is almost too eager to confess, but the evidence refuses to cooperate, hinting at something messier and much darker beneath the pinstripes.
Case 3: For Christmas, Book and Jack are dispatched by the elusive 'E' (Callow) to the picture-postcard village of Würl to head off a thieving Duchess (Richardson). The holiday cheer does not last. Secrets from the past and present start surfacing in a foreboding castle packed with perfectly plausible murder suspects.
Complications on the home front
Book's cozy arrangement with the police keeps paying dividends and danger in equal measure. Meanwhile, his lavender marriage to childhood best friend Trottie (Walker) hits turbulence thanks to the suavely disruptive Colonel Winters (Graves). It is very wartime-afterglow meets post-war recklessness in tone, by design.
Stylish period detective drama with a difference, marrying post-war nostalgia with the era's reckless, life-affirming energy.
How the show is doing
Season 1 launched earlier this year and blew up for the channel, becoming U&Alibi's second-highest-performing premiere ever. Hence the bigger, stranger toys in season 2.
Where to watch
Bookish airs weekly on Wednesdays on U&Alibi. The full series is also available on demand via Sky, Virgin, BT and TalkTalk.