‘The Blame’ Cast: Who’s Who in Michelle Keegan’s ITV Crime Drama

• The Blame premiered on ITV on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 9 p.m. It is six episodes, airing Sundays and Mondays for three weeks, with the full series on ITVX.
• Michelle Keegan plays DI Emma Crane and Douglas Booth plays DI Tom Radley, investigating the death of a teenage figure skater.
• The murder is fiction, from Charlotte Langley’s 2023 novel. Some of the officers’ text messages in the script are real.

Michelle Keegan‘s first detective role landed on ITV on Sunday night, and within hours it was among the most searched terms in the U.K., according to Google Trends.

In The Blame, a teenage figure skater, Sophie Madsen, is found dead in a quiet town. DI Emma Crane catches the case, and the deeper she goes, the more the problem looks like her own squad.

Who is in the cast of ‘The Blame’?

Michelle Keegan as DI Emma Crane. Keegan, 39, came up on Coronation Street and led Netflix’s Fool Me Once. This is her first police role.

Douglas Booth as DI Tom Radley, Crane’s colleague and the squad’s apparent “nice guy.” The two characters also get a romantic storyline.

Ian Hart as DCI Kenneth Walker, the boss. Matilda Freeman as Sophie Madsen, the skater. Joe Armstrong as Coach Kyle Frasier, her coach.

The squad: Josh Bolt as DC Douglas James, Gavin Spokes as DC Joel Stevens, Nathan Mensah as DC Lewis Brimah and Ceallach Spellman as PC Callum Drummond. Nigel Boyle plays Neil Shergill and Tiahna Krenek plays Mila Brimah.

Here is ITV’s trailer.

Is ‘The Blame’ based on a true story?

The case is not. The series is adapted from Charlotte Langley‘s 2023 novel of the same name, by writer Megan Gallagher with Ashley Sanders and Namsi Khan.

The culture it depicts is drawn from real life. Some of the text messages the fictional officers send each other are real messages from British police officers, uncovered through whistleblowing investigations, TechRadar reported after interviewing the two leads.

It’s on the nose, but I think even if it wasn’t that blatant, the effect would be the same. As you go through the story, it goes much deeper.

Douglas Booth, to TechRadar

Booth added that the original opening scene was so explicit it was cut and re-filmed. Keegan said she talked the role through with her father, a former police officer, who she described as “quite private about his job.”

When is the next episode of ‘The Blame’?

Episode 2 airs Monday, Sept. 21, at 9 p.m. on ITV1. The pattern repeats on Sundays and Mondays until the finale on Monday, Oct. 5. All six episodes are already on ITVX for anyone who wants to watch in one go.

No U.S. streaming release has been announced so far. Each episode runs about 47 minutes.

For more cast guides, see who plays who in Netflix’s ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ and the 23 celebrities heading to ‘The Traitors’ castle. More in Movies & TV.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: ITV and ITVX (schedule and cast); Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth on This Morning (ITV); TechRadar (Jasmine Valentine), interview with Keegan and Booth; Heart (Zoe Adams); Quay Street Productions and Fifth Season (production credits); Google Trends U.K. (search data, Sept. 20, 2026). Photos: frames from ITV, The Blame – Coming Soon to ITV, and This Morning, Michelle Keegan’s Dad Helped Inspire Her New Detective Role.