Episode 1 of Grace series 5 has amassed some impressive guest stars to spar with the main cast in a high-octane story.

The series kicks off as grimly as ever, with a body washed up in a barrel on the beach. It’s the start of a twisty-turny episode that sees Roy Grace (John Simm) and his team of down-to-earth Brighton-based cops trying to prevent a bomb going off in a packed football stadium.

And while that may be the climax to other crime shows, it’s just the start here, with kidnappings and human trafficking still to come.

All that drama requires lots of extra faces - and you'll spot some very familiar ones among them from shows as diverse as BBC hit Death in Paradise - series 14 of which just finished - and acclaimed Star Wars series Andor.

Read more: The answers Grace series 5 owes us about Roy's wife Sandy

Guest stars appearing with the cast of Grace series 5 episode 1

Shaun Dingwall plays Joseph Ludlow

Joseph Ludlow is a wealthy, well-connected Brighton businessman whose son, Noel, is kidnapped along with his best friend, Frank Kavinda, after a football match. The kidnappers may have chosen the wrong father to mess with.

Although Shaun Dingwall often crops up in guest roles in prestige dramas such as Grantchester, DCI Banks, Death in Paradise, Silent Witness and Poirot, he’s probably most fondly remembered for playing Pete Tyler, dad to Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, back in the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant eras of Doctor Who (2005-2006). Pete Tyler actually died in series one of the revived sci-fi show but returned as an alternate version of himself from a parallel Earth where Cybermen were on the rise.

Even earlier than this, in the ’90s that he was one of the main characters in a couple of seasons of the much-loved Soldier, Soldier, the show that propelled Robson Green and Jerome Flynn to fame. He played Lance Corporal Steve Evans.

Abhin Galeya guest stars as Kipp Kavinda

Kipp Kavinda is a wealthy businessman and club shareholder in Brighton Royals FC, with a place in the corporate box. Not that his son, Frank, is impressed. He’d rather be in the stands with his mate, Noel. But when Kipp learns that someone’s smuggled a bomb into the stadium, he grows increasingly panicked that he can’t reach Frank.

If you’ve got a Doctor Who guest star, why not have a Star Wars one too? Abhin Galeya was recently seen in five episodes of the first season of the critically acclaimed Star Wars TV series, Andor - which returns with season 2 later this month. He played Salman Paak, owner of the Repaak Salyard on the planet Ferrix, but more importantly, an ally to the rebels and a friend to Andor. His reward was being hanged as a traitor to the Empire.

Way back he also appeared in the final years of police soap The Bill, playing PC Arun Ghir in 24 episodes from 2004 to 2009. More recently he was one of the main cast in ITV’s swiftly cancelled medical drama Maternal (2023) and appeared in five episodes of the Idris Elba-starring Apple+ drama Hijack.

Maya Sondhi appears as Dr Zara Kavinda

Zara Kavinda is a lot more concerned than her husband is when their son, Frank, doesn’t return home after the football match. Kipp thinks Frank is just being a teenager and pushing his boundaries but Zara is the one who thinks they should call the police. Is she just being overprotective because she’s already lost one son?

You’re more likely to have heard Maya Sondhi than seen her before, especially if you were one of the 22 million people who watched Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl last Christmas – Maya voiced Mrs Gazebo in the acclaimed Aardman Animation special.

She’s also leant her voice to other cartoon shows such as Hilda, Dangermouse, The Adventures of Paddington and Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed.

However, if her face does seem naggingly familiar, you probably remember Maya from series 3, 4 and 5 of Line of Duty, where she played PC Maneet Bindra. She was the cop who was a mole within AC-12, passing information to dodgy AC Hilton. She ended up having her throat slit in series 5.

She is also the creator and writer of the ITV crime series DI Ray, starring Parminder Nagra.

Tobias Jowett guest stars as Frank Kavinda

Footie mad Frank is the son of Brighton Royals shareholder Kipp Kavinda, but has a fractious relationship with his dad. So on match day he rejects his dad’s offer of a place in the corporate box and joins bestie Noel in the stands instead. It’s a bad decision, not just because of the whole bomb threat situation, but because both boys end up being kidnapped.

Both the young guest stars this episode have impressive previous credits, despite their tender age.

Tobias Jowett was very recently seen in four episodes of the cast for BBC crime drama Virdee, starring Staz Nair as Harry Virdee. Tobias played the younger Harry in flashbacks.

Oaklee Pendergast plays Noel Ludlow

Noel is Frank’s best mate. After the match they go off to do teenage boy stuff when a van appears from nowhere and two men in balaclavas drag them inside. Has Noel just become collateral damage in a kidnapping gone wrong?

You may have previously seen Oaklee Pendergast in the 2023 ITV mini-series Archie, a dramatised biography of screen legend Cary Grant, whose birth name was Archie Leach. Adult Archie/Cary was played by Jason Isaacs, while Oaklee played the teenage Archie, appearing in the first and last episodes.

Oaklee also played a minor recurring character, Sergeant William Hinton, in three episodes of the Apple+ series Masters of the Air (2024). And a few years back he starred in two series of the C4 sitcom Home (2019-2020), about an English family who accidentally smuggle an illegal immigrant back into the country in the boot of the car. He played John, the son of the family.

Grace series 5 episode 1 airs on Sunday, April 6 at 8pm on ITV1.

All four episodes from series 5 are now available on ITVX, where you can also stream series 1 - 4.