'Up to No Good' Adds Richard E. Grant, Tanya Reynolds to Cast
Glenn Close is 'Up to No Good' in the first photo from the Channel 4 series.
In our Channel 4 roundup from March 2026, one of the most striking shows that currently lacks distribution was Up to No Good. First announced in August 2025 under the working title Maud, the six-part drama is based on Helene Tursten’s best-selling short story collections An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed. Not only is this series an adaptation of popular books (always catnip to the upscale American TV market), but it actually stars an American actor: Glenn Close (Wake Up Dead Man).
Were this 2019, Up to No Good probably would have been a show that multiple streaming services would have bid on, as Close has been a household name on both sides of the pond since the 1980s, and Channel 4 would have footed half the bill. It speaks volumes about how much the U.S. streaming industry has changed in the last five years, after the one-two-punch of the pandemic and the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, that it currently has none.
However, the lack of an American distributor picking up the series is almost certainly temporary. Not only does Close look fantastic in the show’s first image (above), but the full cast roster, which Channel 4 has revealed, is a banger lineup of British A-listers, in a story viewers will want to tune in for.
Here’s the series synopsis:
Up to No Good follows Maud Oldcastle, a hilariously brusque, cantankerous, ruthless older woman — and those are her nice qualities. She is also a killer. Determined to break from a lifetime spent caring for her sister, Maud sets out to claim a long-overdue second act, but when a suspicious young detective investigating a death in Maud’s building starts to believe there is more to her than meets the eye, Maud is forced to reckon with her crimes, present and past.
Close stars as Maud Oldcastle, with Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey) as her sister, Charlotte, and Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton) as the detective assigned to the case. The rest of the main ensemble revealed along with the first image includes Richard E. Grant (The Other Bennet Sister), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), Iain Glen (Mrs. Wilson), Nadia Albina (Bookish), Peter Egan (Unforgotten), Louisa Binder (Hotel Portofino), Raphaël Acloque (Catherine the Great), Meg Ballamy (The Crown), Mathew Baynton (Ghosts), and Madeleine Mantock (The Long Song).
Previously announced cast members include Gloria Obianyo (Andor), Anita Dobson (Doctor Who), Ben Crompton (Game of Thrones), and Meera Syal (The Wheel of Time).
The six-part drama is written by Nina & Moses Raine, a playwriting duo making their television debut. All episodes will be directed by Lee Haven Jones (A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story).
Up to No Good is expected to debut on Channel 4 in the U.K. in late 2026 or early 2027. It does not yet have an American distributor.
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