How And Where To Watch Des With David Tennant In The UK, Australia, USA And Beyond

David Tennant's much anticipated portrayal of the notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen finally hits screens in the UK this evening.

Fans in the UK can tune in to episode one tonight from 9pm on ITV. Episode two will air tomrrow night at 9pm with the third and final instalment coming on Wednesday at the same time. The series will also be available on catch up on the ITV Hub. 
A DVD and Blu-ray release in the UK will take place on 12th October and it can be pre-ordered from amazon.co.uk here. 

Australia will see Des beginning on 15th September on streaming service Stan. A 30 day free trial for the service is available. Find out more on their website here.

Fans in the USA, Canada and the Caribbean can look forward to watching Des on the streaming service Sundance Now. No dates for it dropping have been released as yet so stay tuned.

DirecTV has secured rights to the show in Latin America while TVNZ has the rights for New Zealand.

European deals for Des include a pan-territory acquisition by C More Entertainment covering Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. VRT (Flemish Belgium), Siminn (Iceland), TV2 (Norway), Virgin Media Television (Eire) and BritBox (UK) have also bought the show.

The new three part drama is based on Killing For Company, the biography of Nilsen written by Brian Masters which includes conversations with the killer who would go by the name of 'Des'. David also acts as an executive producer on the series. 

Nilsen murdered boys and young men in his flat from 1978 to 1983. He was undetected for five years, and it was only when DCI Peter Jay was called to 23 Cranley Gardens on 9 February, 1983, to investigate human fragments of flesh and bone clogging the drains, that the police realised they had a serial killer on their hands.  

Dennis Nilsen was arrested and convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was replaced by a whole life tariff in 1994. He died in May 2018.

Told from both the police and Masters’ point of view, Des will explore how a man like Nilsen was able to prey on the young and vulnerable in 1980s Britain.  The series will not only highlight the police investigation and trial but also the effect of the media coverage on public perceptions of the victims at the time, raising questions of just how far have we really come since then?

Additional cast include Ron Cook, Faye McKeever, Chanel Cresswell, Barry Ward, Tony Way, Bronagh Waugh, Laurie Kynaston, Ross Anderson, Ben Bailey Smith, Jay Simpson, Silas Carson, Stuart McQuarrie, Jamie Parker, Lex Shrapnel, Gerard Horan, Joel Morris, Jonathan Coy, Amy Booth-Steel, Ken Bones, Andrew Woodall and Amaka Okafor.