Brilliant BBC dramas we can't wait to watch this year

The Bodyguard, Killing Eve, Doctor Foster, Normal People – it's fair to say we're a nation who love a good TV drama, especially when the BBC are behind the camera. But what about new 2021 BBC dramas coming out this year?

We'll see Lily James and Andrew Scott in the glamorous 1940s screen adaption of Nancy Mitford's novel Pursuit of Love, another exciting Sally Rooney adaption is in the works and if you haven't caught up on Jenna Coleman's latest stylish drama The Serpent – which premiered last month – then what are you waiting for?

From Swedish crime thrillers to Irish noirs and the return of old favourites, we've rounded up the best TV viewing from the BBC in 2021.

Find out more about each show now and prepare to never leave your sofa again...

Release date: January 29th on BBC Two

This Swedish crime series focuses on the Copenhagen Police and Head of Homicide Jens Møller’s meticulous investigation which enabled them to solve the murder of journalist Kim Wall.

Wall was killed after she boarded inventor Peter Madsen's homemade submarine in 2017. Her body washed up on a beach 11 days later. Madsen was later sentenced to life in prison, after a court dismissed his claims that her death was an accident.

Release date: February on BBC One

With Irish noirs seeing a huge surge in popularity at the moment, the news that James Nesbitt is set to star in one this February is very exciting.

Bloodlands follows Nesbitt as Northern Irish police detective Tom Brannick who's on the hunt for an assassin, after connecting a suicide note from a car pulled from the bottom of the loch with an infamous cold case he's been assigned to.

Release date: Feb/ March TBC on BBC One

Everyone's favourite police drama is back for its sixth season this spring. That means Vicky McClure returns as DI Kate Fleming, Martin Compston is back as DS Steve Arnott and Adrian Dunbar will reprise his role as Superintendent Ted Hastings – but this time there's a new DCI in town running the show.

Release date: March on BBC One

Lily James is set to star in the BBC's screen adaption of Nancy Mitford's classic novel.

The three-part period drama follows cousins Linda and Fanny, who travel across Europe between the two world wars, in the pursuit of finding perfect husbands. Dominic West stars as Linda's father and Fleabag's Andrew Scott makes an appearance as their aristocratic neighbour Lord Merlin.

Release date: April on BBC Two

Colin Farrell, Jack O'Connell and Stephen Graham star in this hard-hitting BBC drama, based on Ian McGuire's novel of the same name.

O'Connell plays disgraced ex-army surgeon Patrick Sumner, who signs up to be the ship doctor on a whaling expedition to the Arctic, and is joined on board by amoral killer and harpooner Henry Drax (played by Colin Farrell).

As Sumner struggles to escape the demons of his past, he grapples with survival amongst the harsh Arctic wasteland.

Release date: Spring/ Summer on BBC Three

Not content with essentially winning the 2020 TV content crown with Normal People, the same team are now adapting Sally Rooney's first novel Conversations with Friends.

Despite the two stories being completely different, the latest adaption will also be set in Dublin and follows a similar vein of exploring the nuances and complexities of the main characters' relationships.

Watch as Frances, Bobbi, Nick and Melissa's lives and loves become intertwined, with devastating results - and look out for a possible Normal People's Marianne crossover - after eagle-eyed Rooney fans spotted a character of the same name briefly appearing in the book.

Coming soon to BBC One

Following on from the success of Hugh Grant's turn as disgraced MP Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal, the anthology series now moves on to focus on the messy 1963 divorce of Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll, from her second husband - with the new script being penned by Agatha Christie writer Sarah Phelps.

Release date: Late 2021 on BBC One

With filming delayed due to Covid-19, the new season of this hit show will now be headed back to screens later this year.

Written by Sally Wainwright, the BBC drama is based on the extraordinary life of the 'first modern lesbian' Anne Lister, played by Suranne Jones.

The season finale saw Lister and her lover Ann Walker making their commitments to each other in an unofficial ceremony and fans are excited for season 2 to pick up where it left off.

Release date: 2021 on BBC Two

Adam Kay's bestselling memoir is set to be turned into an 8-part TV series by the BBC, starring Ben Whishaw (Paddington and Skyfall), and produced by Kay himself, who, after giving up life as a doctor, aptly turned his hand to comedy and screenwriting.

Written as a diary-like insight to Kay’s life on the NHS frontline, we’re given a glimpse into the excruciatingly long and unrelenting hours put in by a junior doctor.

'Kay’s diaries, scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, tell the unvarnished truth of life as a doctor working in Obstetrics and Gynaecology,' says the BBC.

Release date TBC on BBC Two

A new six-part crime drama is coming to the BBC, starring Martin Freeman as urgent response officer Chris.

Written by first-time author Tony Schumacher, the show will be based on the former policeman's real life experiences, as he tackles a series of six night shifts on the beat in Liverpool, whilst struggling with his own mental health.

Release date 2021 on BBC One

Set in 1980s Britain, this one-off TV movie is based on Kit de Waal’s novel and tells the uplifting – and incredibly moving – story of nine-year-old Leon, a mixed-race boy who fights to keep his family together as his single-parent mother suffers a devastating breakdown.

Sir Lenny Henry is among the executive producers and the script has been written by Shola Amoo.

Release date: TBC BBC Three

Nicôle Lecky’s first original six-part drama Superhoe is based on her one woman show of the same name. Following 24 year-old Sasha Clayton (Lecky) who dreams of being a singer and rapper, but spends most of her time in her bedroom smoking weed and stalking her ex-boyfriend on Instagram.

Release date: TBC on BBC One

New talent Alice Seabright, who most recently directed two episodes of Sex Education (the trailer for which you can watch above), will write and direct Chloe – a six-part thriller series about a young woman who starts leading a double life to uncover the truth behind the death of her estranged best friend.

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Catch up now on BBC iPlayer

Starring The Eddy's Tahar Rahim as international serial killer Charles Sobhraj, and Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman as Sobhraj’s partner and frequent accomplice, Marie-Andrée Lecler, this eight-part series is based on an incredible true story.

Sobhraj (nicknamed 'The Serpent' and 'The Bikini Killer') was captured and put on trial in 1976 – after spending years on the run as the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976.

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Catch up now on BBC iPlayer

The breakout lockdown series is back for a second season, starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant as comic versions of themselves.

While season one focused on their attempts to rehearse for a play over Zoom, they’re now grappling with the ‘new normal’ of virtual Hollywood.

Catch up on all episodes now on BBC iPlayer

Sultry drama starring House of Cards' Kate Mara, about a high school teacher who abuses her position of authority and starts a sexual affair with a student, changing the course of both of their lives forever.

Catch up now on BBC iPlayer

Based on a story by illustrious Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, this gripping crime drama follows three female forensics experts who are determined to solve a cold case murder, but their investigation forces them to come to terms with their own truths. Line of Duty star Martin Compston also appears.

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Catch up now on BBC iPlayer

Adapted from Rumer Godden's novel of the same name, Black Narcissus is an iconic tale of sexual repression and forbidden love set in the Himalayas in the 1930s - starring Gemma Arterton.

Sister Clodagh (Gemma Arterton) and the nuns of St Faiths travel to Nepal during the latter years of British rule in India, to set up a branch of their order in a remote palace. Sent by General Toda Rai – who hopes the Sisters will rid the ‘House of Women’ of unhappy memories connected to his late sister, Srimati – isolation, illness and the haunting atmosphere of the palace soon take their toll.

The series premiered on the 27th December, so if you haven't seen it yet, catch up on all episodes now on iPlayer.

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