ITV are filming on Le Mans Crescent today - turning a famous spy novel into a television series with a cast including stars from Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror and Trainspotting.

The Ipcress File - based on the Len Deighton book which has sold 10 million copies worldwide - inspired the 1965 Michael Caine film of the same name.

Joe Cole, who shot to fame when he played John Shelby in period drama Peaky Blinders, will take on the title role in the six-part which is set during the Cold War.

His character, Harry Palmer, is serving as a working-class British sergeant in Berlin.

With various side-hustles that ultimately land him trouble with the law, he finds himself facing an eight-year stretch in an English military jail.

But spotting Palmer’s potential, and his network in Berlin, an intelligence officer offers him a way to avoid prison by becoming a spy.

His first case is The Ipcress File — a dangerous undercover mission on which Palmer must use his links to a man suspected of kidnapping a missing British nuclear scientist.

Cole will star alongside Lucy Boynton, who became famous after her role as Mary Austin in Bohemian Rhapsody.

The six-part series will be penned by BAFTA-winning Trainspotting writer John Hodge, while Black Mirror's James Watkins will sit in in the director's chair.

Hodge said: "This is a wonderful opportunity to inhabit a time when the post-war world was morphing into the way we live now.

"When social mobility, civil rights, and modern feminism were forcing their way into public consciousness, and all of it happening with the world divided in two and both halves threatening to blow the whole thing sky high."

It comes as Le Mans Crescent has become a hub of TV action over the last few weeks, including Channel 4 series It’s A Sin, which has been dubbed All 4’s 'most binged new series ever' - with the first episode becoming the streaming service’s most popular drama launch on record.

While earlier this month, Sky One's comedy-drama Brassic, starring Michelle Keegan, began filming for its third series which is due to air later this year.

Production for the six-part series, set in Berlin, will also take place in Liverpool and Croatia.

Deighton’s original 1962 book has sold 10 million copies and sparked a series that spans seven Palmer books - meaning there would be plenty of other material if ITV wished to turn The Ipcress File into a returning franchise.