CAMERA crews have been rolling at a top county attraction as filming for a major new television drama takes place.

The Severn Valley Railway steam heritage line has been chosen as a location for Dancing On The Edge, a five-part BBC2 drama directed by the acclaimed playwright and dramatist Stephen Poliakoff and starring big names such as Jacqueline Bisset.

The time-warp stylings of the Kidderminster and Bewdley stations will be used to full effect in the 1930s-based programme, which follows black jazz musicians the Louis Lester Band as they find fame amongst the parties and performances of London’s upper class society.

Their journey sees them accepted by the city’s more progressive socialites, including members of the Royal household, but they are soon entangled in their shadowy world and find themselves at the centre of a suspected murder.

The Kidderminster terminus doubles as Folkestone, where the band will be seen departing for Dover.

It will star Chiwetel Ejiofor, star of dramas such as Children of Men and The Shadow Line, and Matthew Goode, of Watchmen and Leap Year fame, along with Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Head, Janet Montgomery, Caroline Quentin, Jane Asher and Tom Hughes.

SVR general manager Nick Ralls said: “It’s another important endorsement of the railway and its ability to provide time-warp film settings to order.”

The railway, which re-opened earlier this month after a six-week winter shutdown for track renewals, is providing its vintage seven-coach set of 1920s and 30s LNER teak-bodied carriages and a 1930s-period steam locomotive, the Stanier ‘Mogul’ No.42968.

The latest Guy Ritchie blockbuster Sherlock Holmes – A Game Of Shadows was part-filmed at railway.

The series is due to air on television screens in the autumn.