Russell Tovey is set to star in a new ITV thriller series from Luther creator Neil Cross.

Because the Night will span four episodes and will focus on ghosts and murder in London. Tovey will play Nathan, a “well-meaning but directionless” man who is trying escape his dark past.

According to Deadline, “Nathan is rocked to the core when Bob, an unwelcome face from the past, turns up on his doorstep with shocking news, triggering a series of catastrophic decisions.”

Bertie Carvel, Amrita Acharia, Nina Toussaint-White and Paul Bazely will also star.

Tovey said in a statement: “Because the Night is going to challenge me as an actor more than I’ve ever been challenged before.

“As a web of lies, that he thought was dead and buried, comes back to haunt Nathan, he sinks deeper and deeper into the horror of the event that happened ten years ago. I cannot wait to start filming and join this amazing team and cast.”

Cross added: “Nathan, Bob and Holly have been with me for many years. I couldn’t be more excited to see them brought to life by Russell Tovey, Bertie Carvel and Amrita Acharia.”

Next year, Tovey will also star in ITV’s family drama Flesh and Blood alongside Imelda Staunton, Francesca Annis, Stephen Rea, Claudie Blakley, Lydia Leonard, Sharon Small, Lara Rossi, Keir Charles, Vincent Regan and David Bamber.

BBC One

The series, which is written by Sarah Williams (The Long Song), will tell the story of three siblings – Helen (Blakley), Jake (Tovey) and Natalie (Leonard) – who are forced to come to terms with their widowed mother’s (Staunton) new lover (Rea).

ITV’s official synopsis reads: “As she nears her 70th birthday, the siblings’ suspicions are heightened when retired GP Mark sweeps their mother off her feet, shifting her priorities away from her children.

“Years of secrets, lies, rivalries and betrayals come to the surface and threaten to blow apart everything they’ve held dear.

“With their large family home overlooking the Sussex coast, their inheritance and the happy memories of their childhood all suddenly threatened by the arrival of Mark, the siblings attempt to find out more about him.

“But will their long-buried grudges and complicated personal lives allow them to pull together?”

Tovey recently starred in the critically-acclaimed BBC One series, Years and Years, with Emma Thompson, Rory Kinnear, T’Nia Miller, Jessica Hynes, Dino Fetscher and Maxim Baldry.

The six-part drama, which was helmed by Queer As Folk and Cucumber creator Russell T Davies, followed the fictional Lyons family over the course of 15 years in a Britain rocked by unstable political, economic and technological change.

Related: Russell Tovey praises “graphic” gay love scenes in Years And Years.