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The Iris Affair
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Crime · 2025

The Iris Affair

A mathematician steals a code and vanishes, sparking a chase across Sardinia.

Starring Niamh Algar· Tom Hollander· Sacha Dhawan
Overview

Niamh Algar plays Iris Nixon, a brilliant drifter who lifts an encrypted sequence from suave benefactor Cameron Beck (Tom Hollander) and bolts into the sun-baked alleys of Sardinia. While Beck’s security chief Meski (Angela Bruce) mobilises private muscle, Inspector Nico Casterman (Maya Sansa) and her squad of bent mainland cops treat the hunt as both manhunt and treasure chase. Alfie Bird (Sacha Dhawan), a true-crime YouTuber with a cancelled-journalist past, live-streams every rumour, turning the island into a real-time murder mystery for two million subscribers.

The eight-parter keeps its chapters tight, ranging from 44 to 61 minutes, each episode ending on a fresh cipher or corpse. Writers Neil Cross, Susan E. Connolly and Ian Scott McCullough parcel out clues through Joy Baxter (Meréana Tomlinson), Iris’s truant teenage protégée who trusts nobody over thirty. Atli Örvarsson’s score leans on tremolo strings and tungsten drums, underlining the claustrophobic whitewash of Cagliari and the limestone caves outside Alghero where the final reel plays out.

Sky Atlantic released the series on 16 October 2025, dropping two episodes weekly. First-look stills in May 2025 showed Algar in a blood-smeared linen suit sprinting across Bastione di Saint Remy, confirming the show’s pulp-noir tone before a trailer ever landed.

Production Details

Sky Atlantic / 1 Season / 8 Episodes / 2025 - Present

Created by: Neil Cross

Showrunner(s): Susan E. Connolly, Adrian Sturges, Dante Di Loreto

Writer(s): Ian Scott McCullough

Producer(s): Tim Bricknell[3]

Music: Atli Örvarsson

Main Cast

Niamh Algar as Iris Nixon

Tom Hollander as Cameron McIntyre

Sacha Dhawan as Alfie Bird

Maya Sansa as Inspector Nico Casterman

Meréana Tomlinson as Joy Baxter

Marco Leonardi as Chief Commissioner Enrico Bruni

Angela Bruce as Meski

Peter Sullivan as Julian Baxter

Debi Mazar as Celia Baxter

Kristofer Hivju as Professor Jensen Lind

Harry Lloyd as Hugo Pym

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Kip Ford
Kip Ford
TV Critic & Editorial Director
Kip Ford is Editorial Director at TV Reference. His encyclopedic knowledge spans every era of television history, with particular expertise in British and American drama, crime, and the golden age of network TV.