Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, and Adrian Lester are to star in The Undeclared War, a cyber thriller series from writer-director Peter Kosminsky, Channel 4 has announced.

Alex Jennings, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, and newcomer Hannah Khalique-Brown will also star in the six-part series, a co-production between Peacock and Channel 4.

Rylance and Kosminsky previously collaborated on the BBC's BAFTA-winning historical miniseries Wolf Hall, but The Undeclared War sounds like a very different kind of drama. Set in a post-pandemic 2024 during the build-up to a U.K. general election, it follows a team of analysts at GCHQ – the British equivalent of the NSA – ad they try to fend off an imminent cyber-attack.

Rylance will portray a Cold War veteran coaxed out of retirement to help combat the threat, while Pegg will play GCHQ’s Head of Operations. Lester will portray Andrew Makinde, the UK’s first Black Conservative Prime Minister.

Kosminsky said in a press release: "The series is based deep within the least-known arm of the UK’s intelligence infrastructure, GCHQ. The story we’re now able to tell casts an extraordinary, revelatory light on the hot, undeclared war taking place right now in the world’s newest and most invisible domain of conflict – cyber."

Adrian Lester recently appeared on The Graham Norton Show, and you can watch him showing off his body-popping skills in the clip below.

Do you like the sound of The Undeclared War?