Season 2
Silk is a British television drama series created and written by Peter Moffat and produced by the BBC which follows a set of barristers and their life at the Bar, the dilemmas and problems that modern day barristers have to face and what they do to attain the rank of Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk".
The series premiered in the UK on BBC One on 22 February, 2011.
Silk premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Entertainment channel on Sunday 6 January 2013, at 20h30. Season 2 has not yet aired in South Africa.
Season 2
Maxine Peake, Rupert Penry-Jones and Neil Stuke return for a second season of the legal drama Silk, Peter Moffat's modern take on the lives, loves and hard cases facing barristers on the front line of criminal law.
The series returns to Shoe Lane Chambers, with three new arrivals in the courtroom proceedings: Frances Barber, Phil Davis and Indira Varma.
Martha Costello (Maxine Peake) has got silk. She's in with the big boys now, every case is huge, the stakes are always high and winning and losing matters more than ever. She's incredibly young to be a QC and there are those who think she only got silk because she's a northern woman. The pressure is on. Will she handle it?
Clive Reader (Rupert Penry-Jones) didn't get silk. How will he deal with rejection? Might it bring out the real Clive underneath the lawyer exterior? And what will Martha make of a changed Clive Reader? Or will his ambition make him fight dirty in his bid to get what Martha's got?
The man in the middle is under pressure too. Hard times at the criminal bar make Billy's (Neil Stuke) life a tough one. A schism between those who want to do defence work only and those who think chambers should prosecute too and Billy at the centre of the argument. He knows what he wants and he's going to get it.
But when a solicitor (Phil Davis) who looks after a seriously heavy crime family wants to be his best friend, Billy is asked to choose between professional success and moral compromise. Which way does a man like Billy Lamb go?
Frances Barber joins the cast as Caroline Warwick QC, 50-something, sharp as a stiletto and frightened of nothing. The Lady Macbeth of the Criminal Bar. Has Martha found an ally? Two brilliant women in a man’s world? Or is she about to get stabbed in the back?
Indira Varma is George Duggan, a very beautiful and very principled solicitor, who knows what she thinks and is always happy to say it. She provides a much needed distraction for Clive, but will it be a fatal attraction for Clive? Can the personal and the political mix?
Will Shoe Lane survive and if it does at what cost?
Silk was commissioned by Danny Cohen, Controller BBC One and Ben Stephenson, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning. The executive producer is Hilary Salmon (Criminal Justice, Five Days).
The producer is Richard Stokes and lead director is Peter Hoar.