Mark Williams Cast as Father Brown in New BBC Crime Drama

Late last year BBC commissioned a 10-episode crime drama based on the character of Father Brown, an amateur sleuth created by crime novelist G. K. Chesterton.

Now we're learning (via In Reference to Murder) that Mark Williams — Arthur Weasley in the "Harry Potter" films — has been cast as Father Brown. Sorcha Cusack will play his housekeeper.

Chesterton wrote 52 short stories featuring the parish priest — a short, stumpy Catholic priest, formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London — which were collected into a number of volumes that were published between 1911 and 1935. The character has been played in film and on television by numerous actors, but possibly the best known is Kenneth More's portrayal in a 13-episode British TV series, with each episode based on a short story by Chesterton. A pilot for a US crime drama, Sanctuary of Fear with Barnard Hughes as Father Brown living in Manhattan, aired in 1979 but was not developed further.

Filming has begun in the Cotswolds. Father Brown will air on BBC One in early 2013.