ITV Maryland cast, storyline, how many episodes and where it was ...

Brand new TV drama Maryland starts tonight (May 22). The three-part series was created by Suranne Jones, who also stars in it, and comes to ITV1 and its streaming app ITVX.

The story centres on two sisters who are living very separate lives, one in Manchester and the other in London. A tragic event opens up a whole new world they didn't know about and forces them to get reacquainted and try to pull down their personal barriers.

Suranne Jones plays Becca, a busy mum who lives in Manchester with two kids and a husband, stuck in a fairly ordinary life. Eve Best plays the other sister, Rosaline, who is the polar opposite and has a high-flying career in London - she's single, doesn't have children, and is driven and focused.

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BAFTA and RTS award-winning actress Suranne teamed up with screenwriter Anne-Marie O’Connor to bring to life her idea of two sisters who have grown apart over the years and are brought back together by tragedy.

As the synopsis explains: "Becca (Jones) and Rosaline (Best) have forged ahead with their own lives, growing distant through time and circumstance, until the discovery of their mother's body on the Isle of Man reunites them. Arriving in a place they have never visited and with no idea why their mother was there, the sisters begin to unravel the secrets of a woman they thought they knew, whilst keeping their own secrets from each other."

Who's in the cast of Maryland?

Suranne Jones is well known for her TV roles including Coronation Street, Scott & Bailey, Doctor Foster, and Gentleman Jack. Co-star Eve Best has credits including Nurse Jackie, Lucky Man, and House of the Dragon.

Also in the cast is Stockard Channing, who plays Cathy, their mum's larger-than-life friend on the island. The actress is well known for playing Rizzo, leader of the Pink Ladies, in the Grease movie, and also had a long-running role as the First Lady in The West Wing.

The full cast of Maryland is as follows:

Suranne Jones as Becca

Eve Best as Rosaline

Stockard Channing as Cathy

Hugh Quarshie as Pete

Andrew Knott as Jim

Dean Lennox as Jacob

George Costigan as Richard

Rhiannon Clements as Lauren

Yasmin Davies as Molly

Judy Clifton as Mary

How many episodes are there in Maryland?

There are three episodes in the drama. The first airs on ITV1 and ITVX on Monday, May 22, from 9pm to 10pm.

What's the storyline of Maryland?

in Episode 1, Becca and Rosaline, two sisters living worlds apart in Manchester and London, receive the worst news imaginable about their mother, Mary. The pair fly to the Isle of Man, where they discover their mum had been living a secret second life. The sisters find old wounds reopened and tensions surfacing as they deal with their grief on top of their own private battles.

We see Becca's domestic struggles and Rosaline's health scare while neither sister feels able to share pieces of their lives with the other as they try to keep up appearances out of personal pride.

Where was Maryland filmed?

Maryland is set on the Isle of Man but was actually filmed in various locations in Ireland. The house where the sisters go to meet their mother's friend Cathy is on the Howth peninsula, east of Dublin.

Speaking of her experience making the drama, Suranne Jones said: "I just loved it. I thought it was beautiful. Ireland was beautiful too of course. I loved being by the water, that was just gorgeous. So yes, I had a great experience."

Eve Best said: "I love Ireland although I was really disappointed not to be able to use the Isle of Man. I would have loved to film there. There's a real specificity to the island. But I think we’ve done a really good job of selling the Isle of Man with Ireland and the locations that we found.

"It was just so beautiful to be able to be there on location rather than in a studio. The Irish crew were also central to that. And being by the sea. Some of the others did go for a lot of sea swimming. I didn't, the lake was quite enough for me. But just the presence of the sea itself at the end of a hard day is very soothing. It was a lovely place to be and a lovely team to work with. I found myself looking in a lot of real estate windows."

And she said she had previous connections to Ireland too, explaining: "I lived in Ireland for a time. I went to university in Galway for a year, all my family are from Tipperary. My writing career started there; I wrote two novels in Ireland when I was younger. Not only did I go to university there, when I was in my mid-20s, I moved back and lived in Dublin, and worked, in a previous life, as a PA in Dublin city centre. So, I’ve got such a kinship with Ireland, and I go there all the time. All the family are there."

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