By the BOOK

MARK GATISS on his novel period drama

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On a summery August morning last year, a street not far from Trafalgar Square is a hive of activity with vintage vehicles being driven along and people wearing splendid 1940s costumes wandering around.

TV Times has been invited to watch filming for U&Alibi's Bookish, a new six-part crime drama created by and starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss as Gabriel Book, a sharp-witted bookseller in post-World War Two London who has a sideline assisting the police on particularly complex cases. Book is a gay man living at a time when homosexuality is illegal, but he's married to his childhood best friend Trottie (Bridgerton's Polly Walker - see box, below right) in an arrangement that suits them both.

The series opens with two-part story Slightly Foxed, guest-starring Moonflower Murders actor Daniel Mays and The Power of Parker's Rosie Cavaliero, in which a local chemist is found dead from poisoning. Inspector Bliss (Quiz's Elliot Levey) chalks it up to suicide, but Book suspects it might be murder. During a break in the action, Mark, 58, reveals why his literary mystery is set to be a page-turner...

How did you come up with the concept for Bookish?