'Derry Girls' Star Louisa Harland to Lead Cast of 'The Ballad of Renegade Nell'

Though fans are still mourning the cancellation of the period drama Gentleman Jack, series' creator Sally Wainwright isn't slowing down in terms of projects she's working on. Production on the third and final season of crime drama Happy Valley is already underway, and the cast now appears to be set for her next big project, a fantasy adventure series called The Ballad of Renegade Nell, a limited series that will stream on Disney+.

This is intriguing news from an industry standpoint, as Disney+ isn't exactly known as a streamer home to a substantial amount of British content or as a source of current programming that's particularly interesting to Anglophiles. (Unless those Anglophiles also happen to be Marvel fans.) But Renegade Nell seems to signal the streamer's first tentative steps into this particular content vertical; the show is being branded as a U.K. Original and produced in conjunction with Lookout Point, owned by BBC Studios.

The series is written, and executive produced by Wainwright and follows the story of an 18th-century young woman who unwittingly becomes the country's most famous highwayman (or highwaywoman in this case). Derry Girls' Louisa Harland will star as the titular Nell, a quick-witted and courageous girl who finds herself framed for murder, a twist of fate that will have far more significant consequences than ever dreamt.