A BRADFORD schoolboy is in a major new TV drama about a community set up to build a Yorkshire viaduct.

Jericho, an eight-part series, stars Jessica Raine, who shot to fame in hit BBC1 drama Call the Midwife. Filmed in Huddersfield, Jericho is set in a shanty town in 1870s Yorkshire, peopled with colourful characters who "live, thrive and die in the shadow of the viaduct they’ve been brought together to build".

With a rough, rustic population of pioneers, settlers and outcasts, the ITV series has a Wild West feel, set in rural Yorkshire. The community is comprised of navvies, entrepreneurs, urchins, prostitutes and families who are thrown together to build an ambitious structure set to take several years to finish.

Set against the hostile territory of a bleak Yorkshire landscape, the drama stars Jessica Raine as Annie Quaintain, a poverty-stricken widow forced out of her home, who arrives in Jericho with her two children. Bradford youngster Sam Bottomley plays her teenage son, and his sister is played by Amy James-Kelly, who was troubled Maddie Heath in Coronation Street.

Sam, 14, from Wibsey, attends the Yorkshire School of Acting and his first professional role was in the film Tyrannasaur, followed by a big screen version of Michael Morpurgo's book, Private Peaceful. The youngster was also in the critically acclaimed BBC historical drama Wolf Hall last year.

"Since he joined the Yorkshire School of Acting he's had roles in the Sons of Liberty mini-series and has been a series regular in hit children's TV show Rockets Island, as well as a role in the hugely revered Wolf Hall," said principal Matt Zina.

"Sam came to me two years ago and we have been working together on his screen acting and auditioning. In that time he has gone from being a child talent, to becoming one of the most exciting young actors in the industry. For all his success he remains utterly grounded. This young man has a very exciting career ahead of him."

Jericho also stars Clarke Peters, star of hit US series The Wire, and Yorkshire actor Dean Andrews, who has been in TV dramas Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Last Tango in Halifax.

Scenes for Jericho were shot in Golcar, the Colne Valley Museum and on the moors above Meltham. The main setting for the shanty town was a former quarry, Rockingstone Quarry, near Huddersfield.

* Jericho is on ITV, Thursdays at 9pm.