This Salacious New BBC Drama Is On Our Must-Watch List For November

Following the stonking success of Nicôle Lecky’s BAFTA-award winning miniseries Mood, the actor-writer is back both behind and in front of the camera for Wild Cherry. Britain’s answer to America’s hit series Big Little Lies, this provocative six-part drama showcases the toxic secrets hiding beneath the veneer of a picture-perfect town, with rivalrous parents and wayward teenage daughters leading equally tempestuous social lives. Here’s everything we know so far.

Noori Abas (TARA WEBB), Jocasta (ISABELLE ALLEN), Allegra Lonsdale (AMELIA MAY) & Grace Gibbons (IMOGEN FAIRES) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird)

Wild Cherry: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

What does your teenage daughter do when you drop her off at school, or at a friend’s house? When she attends an elite private school and she and all of her friends live in an exclusive enclave in the leafy Home Counties, you have to assume there can’t be much going wrong. But, as Lorna (Carmen Ejogo) and Juliet (Eve Best) soon find out, pretty much the opposite can be true.

Lorna and Juliet are our leading ladies in Wild Cherry, the former a self-made Black businesswoman from South London who has worked hard to be where she is, and the latter, her best friend, born into wealth and the gated community they now both call home. They are both mothers to a teenage daughter – Grace (Imogen Faires) and Allegra (Amelia May) – who are naturally best friends. Attending an exclusive private school and living in their safe haven for the super rich, Richford Lake, they lead a life many teenagers could only dream of – where bad things just don’t seem to happen.

Juliet Lonsdale (EVE BEST) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Until they do. When Grace and Allegra are implicated in a shocking scandal at school, Lorna and Juliet are forced to take sides. As the frenetic lives of their seemingly innocent daughters rise to the surface (think social media, hidden apps and peer pressure) their friendship is pushed to breaking point, and cracks begin to tear through the shiny facade of their elitist lives.

How far should a mother go to protect her daughter? Just how much does (and should) a teenage daughter know about the woman raising her? And if the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, how did our daughters go so far astray?

Iris Milanovic (CATRIONA CHANDLER), Allegra Lonsdale (AMELIA MAY), Jocasta (ISABELLE ALLEN), Grace Gibbons (IMOGEN FAIRES) & Noori Abas (TARA WEBB) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Directed by Toby MacDonald who recently worked on Prime Video’s explosive tennis drama Fifteen-Love, the old adage ‘like mother like daughter’ rings like a bad omen throughout Wild Cherry, which the BBC’s Lindsay Salt describes as ‘a hugely entertaining drama with multi-generational appeal’.

Filmed in Surrey at the end of 2024, the series was penned by Nicôle Lecky, who also stars in a supporting role as Gigi. Co-lead Ejogo describes Lecky as bringing ‘a fresh and less explored UK perspective to her storytelling which resonates with me personally’.

Freddie Gladstone (JOHN MARQUEZ) & Gigi (NICÔLE LECKY) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

The Cast

As Lecky puts it, ‘Wild Cherry has a brilliant ensemble cast of characters,’ from House of the Dragon and stage star Eve Best as Juliet to Carmen Ejogo as Lorna in her first role on this side of the Atlantic in many years; Stateside she is known for turns in The Penguin and The Girlfriend Experience, though she may also be familiar from the Fantastic Beasts film franchise.

‘Getting to work with Carmen and Eve is such a dream, and they have brought Wild Cherry to life in the most special way,’ Lecky says.

Juliet Lonsdale (EVE BEST) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

‘After House of the Dragon, I wanted to plunge into something and someone very different from who I’d just been playing,’ Best adds. ‘And Nicôle’s brilliantly dark script really keeps me on my toes, which I love.’

Best and Ejogo are joined in Wild Cherry by their on-screen daughters and newcomers Amelia May as Allegra and Imogen Faires as Grace, who you might recognise from Marcella.

In supporting roles we can also spot writer Lecky as Gigi and Peep Show star Sophie Winkleman. ‘I cannot wait for audiences to meet our Richford Lake residents,’ Lecky teases.

Lorna Gibbons (CARMEN EJOGO) & Steven Gibbons (NATHANIEL MARTELLO-WHITE) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

The full cast we know so far is as follows:

• Eve Best as Juliet Lonsdale
• Carmen Ejogo as Lorna Gibbons
• Imogen Faires as Grace Gibbons
• Amelia May as Allegra Lonsdale
• Sophie Winkleman as Frances
• Nicôle Lecky as Gigi
• Nathaniel Martello-White as Steven Gibbons
• John Marquez as Freddie Gladstone
• Daniel Lapaine as Cherry Daniel
• Catriona Chandler as Iris Milanovic
• Isabelle Allen as Jocasta
• Tara Webb as Noori Abas
• Hayat Kamille
• James Murray as Raef Legraff
• Jason York as K Rizz
• Katrina Cas
• Sonita Henry
• Will Bagnall
• Hugh Quarshie

The series is executive produced by Elizabeth Kilgarriff, who says: ‘It is testament to Nicôle’s skill in writing women of all ages with such truth and humanity that we have the privilege of working with such a fabulous and exciting cast. I can’t wait to see them bring this fantastically entertaining, surprising and provocative world to life in a show that looks beneath the surface of privilege to reveal important and timely questions that resonate with us all.’

Daniel (DANIEL LAPAINE) & Frances (SOPHIE WINKLEMAN) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Release Date

Wild Cherry is set to premiere on BBC One and iPlayer in November 2025. Stay tuned for a specific date when we know it.