Hartlepool-filmed drama The Fortune premieres on Channel 5

The Fortune stars Poldark actress Eleanor Tomlinson, Harry Potter star Matthew Lewis and All Creatures Great and Small actor Callum Woodhouse.

The four-part Channel 5 series, which begins at 9pm on Tuesday, June 2, was largely filmed in Hartlepool with locations including the Headland.

Originally titled The Family Secret, The Fortune follows Tomlinson’s character, Amanda, after she suddenly inherits a vast fortune from a man she has never met or heard off.

Woodhouse, 32, who is from Stockton, plays vengeful son Jimmy in the series.

He has spoken about how he relished the opportunity to film close to where he was brought up and described it as “a homecoming for me”.

Woodhouse, best known for his period drama roles, said: “There were so many firsts for me.

“Obviously, staying with my parents and filming in places I grew up visiting was a huge draw, but also being able to do something set in the modern day was really exciting.”

He added: “We were filming just over the road from where my mum works, so we'd meet up for lunch sometimes.

“I left home at 18 to go straight to drama school and then stayed in London and have been working there ever since.

“So for those couple of months, I got to experience something I'd never really had before: going to work during the day and then coming home to sit around the dinner table with my mum and dad.

“We'd all talk about how our days had been and that was something I'd missed out on because I left home so young."

The Fortune is not the only television series to be filmed in Hartlepool recently.

Film crews descended on the West Park area of town in March to shoot scenes for a new BBC adaptation of Sue Townsend’s best-selling book The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾.

The Northern Studios, in the town’s Lynn Street,also offers television and film production facilities with larger studios expected to follow shortly as part of a £33.5m expansion programme.