With filming now underway on Pennyworth, Deadline is reporting that Polly Walker (Line of Duty, Rome) has signed on for a recurring role in the Batman prequel series, which explores the early, pre-butler days of Alfred Pennyworth.
Walker is set to portray Peggy Sykes, the sister of main villain Bet Sykes (Paloma Faith), one of Lancashire’s busiest and most successful dominatrixes. Peggy is described as “the sensible matriarch in a family of maniacs [who] is fiercely loyal, endlessly resourceful and lives by her own strange but rigorous moral code.”
Jack Bannon (The Imitation Game) stars in the title role as the young Alfred Pennyworth alongside Ben Aldridge (Fleabag) as Thomas Wayne and Ryan Fletcher (Outlander) and Hainsley Lloyd Bennett (Casualty) as Alfred’s military buddies Dave Boy and Bazza. Jason Flemyng (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, X-Men: First Class) has also been cast as a villain called Lord Hardwood.
The series will see Alfred, Thomas and two of Alfred’s closest friends, Trinidadian Marcus “Bazza” Barrington and Scotsman Wallace “Dave Boy” MacDuff, take on the villainous Raven Society. Led by the mysterious Lord Hardwood and his sadistic henchwoman, Bet Sykes, the Raven Society will find themselves in what sounds like a season long game of cat-and-mouse with our heroes after Sykes abducts a dancer by the name of Esme Whitaker. The heroes will battle Hardwood and the corrupt London police force in an effort to rescue Whitaker and will have to come to trust one another to do so, setting the table for one of comics’ greatest relationships.
Pennyworth is set to premiere on Epix in 2019.