ITV Announces Echo Beach Cast

Following the announcement of Jason Donovan, Martine Mccutcheon and Ben Miller, ITV today announces a stellar supporting cast for both Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach.

In Echo Beach, Hugo Speer (Bleak House, The Full Monty) will play Mark Penwarden, who will stop at nothing to run his wife Susan’s (McCutcheon) ex-lover Daniel Marrack (Donovan) out of Polnarren, and Johnny Briggs (Coronation Street) will play long term resident Fin Morgan.

And Echo Beach is going to be sizzling, with a cast of Britain’s hottest young talent playing the town’s youngest residents. These will include Ed Speelers (Eragon), Marcus Patrick (Hollyoaks), Laura Greenwood (Prime Suspect 7), Christian Cooke (Where The Heart Is), Jonathan Readwin (Robin Hood), Naomi Ryan (Dream Team), Chandeep Uppal (Anita And Me) and newcomer Hannah Lederer Alton.

Moving Wallpaper’s Ben Miller (Armstrong And Miller, Primeval, The Worst Week) will be joined by Raquel Cassidy (Party Animals, Lead Balloon), James Lance (Teachers, Sensitive Skin), Sarah Hadland (Saxondale, Peep Show), Elizabeth Berrington (The Office), Lucy Liemann (The IT Crowd), Dave Lamb (The Smoking Room) and Sinead Keenan (Trouble With Sex).

Susie Amy (Footballer’s Wives, Hotel Babylon) will appear in both shows.

Kudos, the production company behind Life On Mars, Spooks and Hustle, will make both 12 part series and the two shows will run together ITV1. Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach has a distinctive set up; eagle-eyed viewers will see jokes, characters and stories crossing from one show to the other.

For instance, actress Susie Amy will play a supporting artist in Moving Wallpaper, salaciously begging producer Jonathan Pope for a line in Echo Beach. Viewers will then see Susie triumphantly star as Angela in the soap.

Both shows have been created by Tony Jordan, lead writer and story consultant for EastEnders, co-creator of Life On Mars and creator of Hustle.

Echo Beach will follow the lives of Daniel, Susan and Mark whose affairs of the heart are played out amongst the teenage angst, family loyalties and tested friendships. Martine will play a woman with a past, while Jason will play the returning ex-lover who is set to rock the foundations of Mark and Susan’s marriage.

On the other side of the camera is Moving Wallpaper, where an army of executives, crew and publicists behind the making of the soap will be pushed to their creative limits by the irrepressible Pope.

Jordan, who has written for Eastenders since 1985, will executive produce both shows with Kudos’s Jane Featherstone and Alison Jackson.