Believe it or not it’s been three years since Ridley series 1 first graced our screens so we’d put money on you needing a recap of all the drama and all its stars.

The rural Lancashire-based cop show starring Line of Duty’s Adrian Dunbar as a retired detective and part-time jazz singer was an instant smash in 2022, becoming ITV1’s fourth biggest new drama launch that year.

The second series finally launches on ITV1 and ITVX on August 10. Don’t tune in without our Ridley series 1 recap – and a detailed reminder of what happened to the detective’s wife and daughter.

Read more: All you need to know about Ridley series 2

What made Ridley series 1 such a different kind of crime show?

When it comes to what makes this show stand out in a TV landscape full of crime shows, there are two main things you need to know about Alex Ridley: he’s a retired cop doing freelance work for his old force; he co-owns a jazz club, where he regularly sings on stage.

The windswept setting of the Lancashire Pennines moorlands also give the series a unique feel. And the show stars that acting force of nature, Adrian Dunbar, previously best known as Line of Duty’s Ted Hastings, which is as good a reason as any to tune in.

Ridley series 1 recap: the basic premise

Ridley reflects real-life retired detectives who rejoin the police in consultancy roles, to help lighten the load on overstretched forces.

In the show, Alex Ridley is a cop who’s been forced into early retirement on medical grounds. He had a breakdown after his wife and daughter were killed in an arson attack on their house, and was deemed unfit for service.

His job has been filled by his old colleague, DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh). But she’s not too proud to reach out for help from Ridley. After all, with his years of experience and natural nose for investigation he’s a valuable asset on trickier cases.

So Carol convinced her initially sceptical boss, DCI Paul Goodwin (Terence Maynard), to start using Ridley as a freelance consultant. While Goodwin was still wary of Ridley’s mental state, he could see the value in such an arrangement.

(This is a rare cop show where there’s little in the way of power politics going on among the team, and they’re all respectful of each others’ talents and the value of working together.)

Ridley’s jazz club connections

Ridley also co-owns a jazz club, Marling’s, with his old friend Annie Marling (Julie Graham), and regularly gets up on stage to croon along with the house band (and, yes, it really is Adrian singing).

When not singing or investigating, Ridley spends his downtime repairing a boat he was encouraged to buy by his late wife – he calls it Ella Kate in memory of her and his daughter. He works on the boat at his new home, a former boathouse next to a lake.

“He’s complicated in many ways,” says Adrian Dunbar of his character. “Quite a distance away from anything I’ve played before, even though it’s me, it looks like me, and there’s obviously echoes of Ted Hastings, because he’s a cop. But there are so many interesting layers to his personality, so many things in his background, his history, especially with all the different places that he goes to and the different things he has to deal with. The complications of the guy, I think, was the main thing that attracted me to it.”

Who were the main characters in Ridley series 1?

Here’s a brief overview of the central characters on the show. There’s a more detailed look at the actors who played them, and where you’ve seen them before in this article covering Ridley series 2 cast.

Ridley series 1 recap: Alex Ridley

Alex Ridley (Adrian Dunbar): The jazz-loving, retired cop who now works as a freelance consultant for Copelton District Police Force. He was on the Force for 25 years, and friends would call him a discreet and private man, always courteous, with old- fashioned manners.

DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh): The cop who took over Ridley’s role on the Force after he was forced to retire on medical grounds. She’s Copelton born and bred, with street smarts that make her a good detective.

DCI Paul Goodwin (Terence Maynard): Ridley and Carol’s boss, Cambridge graduate Paul Goodwin likes to think of himself as the face of modern policing. A quiet authority and team player, he sometimes has issues with Ridley’s old school approach to the job.

DC Darren Lakhan (George Bukhari): Local lad DC Lakhan became a copper after a two-year spell in the army. What Darren lacks in academic learning he more than makes up for with hard work.

Ridley series 1 recap: Annie Marling

Annie Marling (Julie Graham): The manager, hostess and co-owner (along with Ridley) of Marling’s jazz club. Annie was a close friend of Ridley’s deceased wife, Kate, and was godmother to Kate and Ridley’s daughter, Ella.

Dr Wendy Newstone (Georgie Glen): Chief forensics officer and police pathologist at Copelton District Police Force. If you don’t know her well, she comes across like some kind of medical Miss Marple, reeling off the gruesome details of a murder as if she was sharing a cake recipe.

Geri Farman (Bhavna Limbachia): Geri is Carol’s wife. A part-time lecturer in Social Sciences at Salford University, Geri combines work with parenting their teenage son, Jack. The family home has Geri’s signature all over it: warm and earthy.

Jack Farman (Tareq Al-Jeddal): Cool with having two mums, in every other way Jack is a typical teenage boy, with all the strops, sulks and long sessions of online gaming that entails.

Where is Ridley set and filmed?

Ridley is set in rural Lancashire near the border with Yorkshire, among the Pennines.

When the stories take the characters out of town and into the surrounding countryside, it’s a bleak, undulating landscape that helps give the show a distinctive look.

“That particular area, the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, gives a sense of isolation,” says the show’s creator and lead writer Paul Matthew Thompson (who has also worked on Vera). “Obviously, it’s very beautiful, but it’s also a stark, bleak beauty. The people are very important. They’re very much a product of the place that they grow up in. There’s a fierce pride, and people are sometimes insular and guarded.”

The show is mainly in the town of Copelton (Ridley and the team work for the Copelton District Police Force), though Carol, Geri and Jack’s house is in an outlying village called Allerton Bridge, and other nearby villages include Wensbeck, Brackenbed, Colden Vale and Septon. All of these are fictional.

The real-life town of Todmorden stands in for parts of Copelton and Allerton, though the rather grand police station building is actually on Le Mans Crescent in nearby Bolton.

Ridley’s lakeside house was located on the banks of Watergrove Reservoir near Wardle, Rochdale.

Todmorden Wind Farm on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border also regularly provides a striking backdrop, with the large windmills looming over the landscape like alien war machines from War of the Worlds or the Tripods.

The canal in Todmorden also makes regular appearances. You can read more from the makers about Ridley filming locations from series 1 interviews.

What were the stories in Ridley series 1?

Episode 1: The Peaceful Garden

With a local farmer dead, newly promoted DI Carol Farman called on Alex Ridley to assist on a missing persons case that remained unsolved after 13 years. Ridley had always suspected the investigation was flawed, and that police has accused the wrong man of the abduction. As they delved deeper, they uncovered another body, and a shocking secret.

Episode 2: Hospitality

When the body of a young woman turned up in a shallow grave on a bleak Pennine moorland, Carol called in Ridley to assist with the case, and the victim was hiding big secrets. Ridley discovered she was leading a secret double life. In order to solve the mystery of Gabriela’s true origins, Ridley needed to track down her killer and finally lay her to rest.

Episode 3: Swansong

After a chance encounter with jazz singer Eve Marbury, Ridley agreed to help find Eve’s brother Luke, missing for many years. Initial enquiries drew a blank, but when a woman turned up dead in playing fields in suspicious circumstances, Ridley found a connection. Further links between the case and dark secrets buried for decades began to emerge.

Episode 4: The Numbered Days

Ridley and Carol investigated the suspicious death of a man after a fall from his balcony. The prime suspect was Cal Flannery, the dead man’s younger brother. During the investigation, Ridley made a shocking discovery between the murder case, and the arson attack that killed his family. Ridley found himself closing in on the truth of what happened on the fateful night.

Ridley series 2 is airing on ITV1 on Sunday nights from August 10 (at 8pm). All series 1 & 2 episodes are available on ITVX.