Keeley Hawes joins cast of JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy series

Keeley Hawes will appear in BBC1's adaptation of JK Rowling's global best-selling novel The Casual Vacancy.

The actress, who recently won acclaim for her role in BBC crime thriller Line of Duty, will play troubled mother Samantha Millison in the three-part series, which will follow the tensions and rivalries in the quiet fictional town of Pagford following the sudden death of a local councillor.

The Casual Vacancy, which begins filming in the West County next month, has been adapted by writer Sarah Phelps, whose recent credits include The Crimson Field, and will also star Michael Gambon as Samantha's deli-owning father-in-law, Julia McKenzie as his wife, W1A's Rufus Jones as Samantha's husband and Rory Kinnear as the ill-fated councillor.

Caren has been a journalist specializing in TV for almost two decades and is a Senior Features Writer for TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and What’s On TV magazines and she also writes for What to Watch.

Over the years, she has spent many a day in a muddy field or an on-set catering bus chatting to numerous stars on location including the likes of Olivia Colman, David Tennant, Suranne Jones, Jamie Dornan, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi as well as Hollywood actors such as Glenn Close and Kiefer Sutherland.

Caren will happily sit down and watch any kind of telly (well, maybe not sci-fi!), but she particularly loves period dramas like Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and The Crown and she’s also a big fan of juicy crime thrillers from Line of Duty to Poirot.

In her spare time, Caren enjoys going to the cinema and theatre or curling up with a good book.