Colin Morgan land leads in BBC's 'Living and the Dead' series

Colin Morgan and Charlotte Spencer are to lead the cast of the six-part mystery series The Living and the Dead, the BBC announced.

Morgan will play the lead role of Nathan Appleby, while Spencer will play his wife Charlotte in the small-screen drama, which takes place in 1894 Britain. The program was created by Ashley Pharoah whose credits include Life On Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Moonfleet.

"A house that's almost as old as the English countryside itself. A brilliant young couple inherit the farm and are determined to start a new life together. But their presence in this isolated corner of England starts to unleash strange, unsettling and dangerous supernatural phenomena that will start to threaten their marriage," a synopsis said. "This is a drama steeped in the eeriness of the rural world at the moment when the industrial revolution came crashing in to disrupt all the old certainties. Uncanny, intriguing, disturbing. At the series' heart is the love story of Nathan and Charlotte Appleby: deeply in love with each other, but put under extraordinary pressure, they will have to fight to save their marriage and their home."

"The Living and the Dead is one of those scripts that you read and are instantly compelled and engaged by. It's intelligent, chilling and engrossing. It's going to be very special and I can't wait to start working on it with the wonderful creative team," Morgan said in a statement.

"It's always been a dream of mine to appear in a period drama and they don't come better than this -- fantastic, original scripts and, in Charlotte Appleby, a superb character who's strong, passionate and gutsy. Couple this with an incredible director, crew and cast, I can't wait to get started," added Spencer.

"I am completely thrilled that Colin and Charlotte are joining us on our adventure. The characters they play -- Nathan and Charlotte Appleby -- dominate the series and I couldn't be more excited to see what they do with them," Pharoah remarked.