Gerard Kearns

This eight-episode, hourlong historical drama series is adapted from Bernard Cornwell's best-selling novels, The Saxon Stories by writer Stephen Butchard.

Written by Lucy Kirkwood (Skins), the eight-part series follows the high-adrenaline adventures of White Watch, a team of London firefighters.

Following a shocking incident amongst an otherwise normal family, 30 year-old Mark Nicholas returns to the town where he grew up. After ten years away, coming home to Renton is harder than Mark could ever have imagined. He always had a strained relationship with his parents, his grandmother Bettyis now living in his childhood bedroom and he barely knows his teenage sister Jodie. Mark starts to be drawn back into the life he left behind. Most of his school friends still live in the town but he finds it hard to re-connect with them. Hardest of all is meeting his first love Alice who stayed behind when he left. They still have strong feelings for each other but Alice is now married with a child. Mark struggles to decide whether he should stay permanently to be with his family. But a new life is difficult to build in the place you used to call home and it now feels like you barely know it.

The Radio Times described the drama as a Semi-Autobiographical series. It's about a shambolic family living on a Manchester estate. Eldest sister, Fiona, has to look after her five younger siblings after their mother's disappearance and there father became an alcoholic.