Ted Lasso and Ludwig stars in first look at new BBC drama based on acclaimed romantic novel with "moving story of longing"

Toheeb Jimoh is set to appear in new series Open Water on BBC One next year, and first-look images of the romantic drama have now been released.

The series, which has finished filming on location in Birmingham and London, stars Jimoh (Ted Lasso) as Marcus and Dujonna Gift (Ludwig) as Effie, in a story based on Caleb Azumah Nelson's acclaimed novel.

The official synopsis of the series reads: "Marcus works in retail while trying to develop a career as a photographer. Effie is studying dance at university in Dublin.

"From the moment they meet, they feel an immediate, undeniable connection. But, as Marcus soon learns, Effie is in a relationship with Marcus’s friend Samuel. It’s a boundary that Marcus is unwilling to cross.

"A shared project, photographing and documenting Black creatives in London, draws them into each other’s orbit, but can their burgeoning friendship resist the pull of desire?

"They seem destined for each other, their crush evolving into a love that is ocean deep. But love is never enough, and their path towards one another is treacherous. Will they sink or swim in open water?

"Open Water is a moving story of longing, belonging and the courage to open yourself to love."

The eight-part series has been adapted by Nelson, who also directs and is an executive producer on the project. Open Water won the Costa Book Award for a first novel in 2021, as well as a Betty Trask Award for a first novel by a writer under the age of 35, Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and the Somerset Maugham Award.

In an essay he wrote for The London Magazine in 2021, Nelson explained how he was inspired to write Open Water.

He said: "I wanted to write a novel a reader could hear and see and feel. And what did I want the reader to feel? That sometimes language failed us, but I was looking for new ways to express how we might feel.

"That I had loved and I had lost, and I sometimes felt beautiful, sometimes ugly, that sometimes I was looked at, not seen and this hurt. That I was coming to the page to be honest and raw, and that I was sure of I how I felt.

"I knew there would be a discrepancy between what I could feel and what I could say, but if a reader could feel something of what I felt – of my music, my rhythm, my joy, my grief, my pain, my love – then I had done something of what I had set out to do."

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Open Water will be coming to BBC and BBC iPlayer next year.

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