The Serpent to premiere on BBC One on New Year’s Day

Inspired by real events, The Serpent tells the remarkable story of how the conman and murderer Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) was brought to justice.

Posing as a gem dealer, Sobhraj and his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc travelled across Thailand, Nepal and India in 1975 and 1976, carrying out a spree of crimes on the Asian ‘Hippie Trail’ and becoming the chief suspects in a series of murders of young Western travellers.

As Sobhraj repeatedly slips from the grasp of authorities around the world, Herman Knippenberg, a junior diplomat at the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok, unwittingly walks into his intricate web of crime. He sets off an extraordinary chain of events that will see Sobhraj become Interpol’s most wanted man, with arrest warrants in multiple continents.

Jenna Coleman has taken on the role of Marie-Andrée Leclerc, the partner and accomplice of one of the most elusive criminals of the 20th century.

Billy Howle and Ellie Bamber round out the main cast as Herman and Angela Knippenberg.

The Serpent will premiere on BBC One on New Years Day and will later be available outside of the UK and Ireland as part of production partner Netflix’s content offering.

The eight-parter was produced by Mammoth Screen and written by Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay.