Harry Potter star Sir Michael Gambon is take a leading role in the BBC1 adaptation of JK Rowling's novel The Casual Vacancy.
Gambon, who took over the role of Professor Dumbledore in the third Harry Potter film after the death of Richard Harris, will play adulterous parish council leader and delicatessen owner Howard Mollison in the three-part miniseries, which goes into production in early July.
The Casual Vacancy, Rowling's first novel after the series about the schoolboy wizard that became a global literary and film phenomenon, opens with the death of a parish councillor and is based around a local council election in the fictional West Country town of Pagford, which appears to be an English idyll but is at war with itself. Those standing for election find their darkest secrets revealed on the parish council online forum, ruining their chances and provoking outrage and controversy.
The book, Rowling's first attempt to write for an adult readership, received mixed reviews – perhaps inevitably after the runaway success of the Potter books – but became an instant bestseller and has sold more than 6 million copies worldwide since publication in 2012.
Other cast members confirmed by the BBC on Friday include Julia McKenzie as Mollison's wife, Shirley, and Rufus Jones as his son, Miles. Keeley Hawes will take the role of Miles's wife and Rory Kinnear will play Barry Fairbrother, the character whose death sets the book's narrative in motion.
Monica Dolan, who won a Bafta for her portrayal of Rose West in ITV drama Appropriate Adult, will play Tess Wall, with Simon McBurney (Rev's archdeacon Robert) playing her husband, Colin.
The Casual Vacancy is a BBC/HBO co-production being made by Bronte Film and Television, the production company co-owned by Rowling. The adaptation is in the hands of Sarah Phelps, creator of the recent first world war military hospital drama The Crimson Field and BBC1's 2011 version of Great Expectations, starring Ray Winstone as Magwitch.
Earlier this week it emerged that Rowling's next novel includes references to phone hacking and features a disreputable journalist among its characters. The writer gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry and has spoken out against press intrusion into her personal life.
The Silkworm, her second crime thriller written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, begins with its private detective hero, Cormoran Strike, passing evidence of an affair between a peer and his secretary to a journalist.
Due to be published on 19 June, The Silkworm sees her hero on the trail of a killer who bumps off a novelist. Strike and his assistant, Robin Ellacott, attempt to solve the mystery surrounding the death of writer Owen Quine after first being called in to investigate his disappearance.
