Directors: Niall MacCormick, Fiona Walton

Writer: Gregory Burke, Ian Rankin (novels)

Executive producers: Paul Cuddy, Jill Green, Eve Gutierrez, Tomas Axelsson, Isabelle Hulten, Niall MacCormick, Gregory Burke, Ian Rankin

Cast: Richard Rankin, Brian Ferguson, Amy Manson, Lucie Shorthouse, Thoren Ferguson, Caroline Lee-Johnson, Sean Buchanan, Michelle Duncan, Stuart Bowman, Noof Ousellam

Production company: Eleventh Hour Films

Broadcaster: BBC

Episodes: Six-part series

Screen Scotland funding: Rebus accessed £400,000 through Screen Scotland’s Production Growth Fund to support the production to film in Scotland and provide vital training opportunities for local talent from diverse backgrounds to gain industry experience.

Synopsis

Set in Edinburgh, the six-part series reimagines John Rebus as a younger Detective Sergeant who finds himself torn between protecting his brother and enforcing the law. 

Shaken after a violent encounter with gangster Ger Cafferty, Edinburgh detective John Rebus finds himself at a psychological crossroads. At odds with a job increasingly driven by corporate technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play – either as a family man or a police officer.  

In a time of divisive politics and national discord, Rebus’s ex-soldier brother Michael, who’s broke, desperately crosses the line in order to provide for his family, and Rebus starts to question if the law still has meaning, or if everyone is reverting to an older set of rules. And if so, why shouldn’t he do so too? 

More information

Filming took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow in 2023. 

Rebus is now available to watch on iPlayer.

Image credits 

Still from Rebus showing Richard Rankin as John Rebus, courtesy of the BBC. 

Rebus poster, courtesy of the BBC