April 9

How did it feel to come back to series two of Blue Lights?

Declan: Coming back for series two was like coming back to meet old friends and then devising new ways to put your old friends through torture. It was a joy to be back filming again.

Adam: Coming back for series two was a dream come true for us; to be working like this in our home town and to be able to make a show about the place that we love is something quite special that comes around really rarely.

Were you surprised at the success of the show?

Adam: The success of the show caught us off-guard because even though we had high hopes for it, you never know how people are going to react. We wanted to make a show that we were proud of, that people in Northern Ireland loved and a show they felt represented the place we all love. We invested a lot of ourselves in the first series.

Declan: The success of series one has at times been overwhelming and that’s because the show is our hearts on the screen. When other people reacted emotionally to it, that really struck us.

Why do you think the show struck a chord with the audience?

Declan: Blue Lights is set in a very specific place. It’s hyper local yet universal in its themes. Everyone has started a new job, has felt under pressure, and to some extent, everyone has found a family that’s not their own family. These things affect all of us regardless of where we are from so perhaps that had something to do with why it seemed to resonate so much.

Adam: The great television dramas that we look up to and aspire to are about family. From the outset Blue Lights looks like it’s about the PSNI but actually it’s about people and how they react when they are under pressure. We all need love, hope and optimism in our lives to get through great difficulty and I think that’s why Blue Lights has hit on that universal theme where people around the world see a bit of themselves.

How has series two been elevated from the first series?

Declan: Series two is bigger, bolder and more dramatic. Series one was about our recruits having their feet held in the fire and in series two they are firmly in the fire. The city is under siege with drugs and petty crime and they can’t work out what’s going on nor do they have the resources to deal with it. At the heart of the series is a story about a veteran, Lee Thompson, who returns to see the place he has grown up in torn apart by drugs and crime. He decides to wage a one-man revolution against the loyalist godfathers and it causes total chaos for our police officers and the city in general. Everything spirals out of control and the pressure grows.

Adam: In series one we had three new recruits in an alien world but they are now a year into the job and we see them taking a few more risks. Creatively, we are also taking more risks. There’s a lot of Belfast to look at and we wanted to shine a light on different parts of the city. One of the unifying themes about series two is how difficult it is to initiate change and our young loyalist rebel wants to change his home environment for the good but ends up having to do bad things in order to change that system. It’s about how far can you go to try and do good in the world. It’s all about the grey which is where Blue Lights lives.

How would you describe series two of Blue Lights?

Declan: The central theme of Blue Lights is idealism v pragmatism which is in the DNA of the show and in every character. We all live in the space between the two; who we want to be and who we are. This series delves further into that. Everyone has ideals but they have to compromise them. It’s about the daily grind and what that does to you and how, as a cop and as a person, you can never be exactly who you want to be. It’s also about why family matters and if you don’t have a family, often you will find yourself quite lost.

All six episodes in Blue Lights season 2 will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Monday 15th April, before the first episode airs on BBC One at 9pm that evening.

The rest of the season is then expected to air weekly on BBC One.

Filming on the season took place in summer 2023 in Belfast.