Michelle Collins and Philip Glenister star as former lovers re-united on a murder hunt, in Carlton's new police drama LLOYD & HILL.

LLOYD & HILL is a two-hour film adapted from A Shred Of Evidence, one of the highly-acclaimed novels by Jill McGown featuring the two detectives.

And the drama sees Michelle upholding the law for the first time in her TV acting career.

"I've always been on the other side of the law, since a very early appearance in The Bill, and it's been very exciting. However, I thought it would nice to be a police officer for a change!"

But filming did bring back memories of when she robbed a Hemel Hempstead building society!

"We drove past a video shop which used to be a building society, where we had filmed for Daylight Robbery , and I shouted out 'I've robbed that bank!"

Michelle plays Det Inspector Judy Hill, whose husband's job means a transfer to a new police division, where her former lover Chief Inspector Danny Lloyd - Philip Glenister - is in charge.

Divorced since his affair with Hill, Lloyd is shocked to discover that she is now married.

But when the two are plunged into a murder hunt for the vicious killer of a schoolgirl, how will their professional closeness during the investigation impinge on their personal lives and relationship?

Michelle Collins was acclaimed recently for her role as a bigamous wife in ITV's Perfect, and has also starred for ITV in Real Women and Up, Rising.

Philip Glenister starred with Amanda Holden earlier this year as Rob Campbell in Carlton's The Hunt, and is currently filming a new series of Clocking Off.

Other cast members include John Light, Carol Starks, Shaun Dingwall, Lloyd Hutchinson, Christopher Villiers and Hywel Bennett as pathologist Dr Freddie Marks.

Carlton's director of drama Jonathan Powell had already come across the Lloyd & Hill novels of Jill McGown in a hunt for a new police drama.

"For some reason these had been overlooked, and I don't quite know why. I thought they had completely brilliant plots, were very well written and detailed a very interesting relationship between the two central characters.

"And then, completely by coincidence, I had lunch with Michelle to talk about things we might do together. Towards the end of the meal, as a throwaway line - and I certainly didn't expect it - she said 'Oh, and by the way, I've always wanted to play a policewoman and maybe one in a relationship with a policeman.'"

The screenplay from Jill McGown's novel is written by Richard Maher, whose television credits include ITV's Rough Treatment, episodes of Taggart and Pie in the Sky. LLOYD & HILL is produced by Lars Macfarlane (Silent Witness, Second Sight) and directed by Philippa Langdale, who has recently worked on Carlton's The Vice and Big Bad World, and episodes of John Thaw's latest ITV drama The Glass.

Executive producers are Jonathan Powell and Charles Elton; Charles produced The Railway Children for Carlton and is currently in pre-production for a new TV dramatisation of Pollyanna. LLOYD & HILL is a Carlton production.