Newmarket schoolboy Kamari Loyd takes first TV role in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

A Newmarket schoolboy is counting down to making his debut in one of most talked about new television series to hit the small screen.

Eleven-year-old Kamari Loyd, a pupil at St Louis Catholic Academy in the town’s Fordham Road, is one of the stars of teen crime thriller A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder which will arrive on BBC iPlayer on Monday and will air on BBC Three later in the month.

The six-part series is based on author Holly Jackson’s smash hit novels and Kamari plays Josh Fitz-Amobi, younger step brother of the star of the show, Pip, played by American actress Emma Myers known for her role in Netflix's Wednesday.

Kamari, who lives with his parents Lucy and Edward, and younger brother Kyrie, in Newmarket, said he was very excited about the prospect of being one of the stars of the series so eagerly awaited by fans of the book which has been catapulted to viral fame by TikTok's reading community, known as BookTok.

Already signed to a modelling agency with a couple of campaigns including for Specsavers and Hunter boots under his belt, Kamari was sent for an audition for the show last year.

“We waited for news and then I had to go for a re-take in London with the show’s director Dolly Wells,” said Kamari. “When they told me I had got the part I just felt shock at first but that soon gave way to excitement.”

The show was filmed in Bristol.

“At first I was nervous but it soon became a lot less stressful and I really enjoyed myself,” said Kamari. “All the cast were really cool and all of us became friends.”

He said the experience had given him a taste for acting and next week he will be taking to the stage at his school with his classmates for their leavers’ production.

Commissioned by the BBC, the series has been produced by Moonage Pictures, also responsible for The Pursuit of Love, The Gentlemen, and Bodies, with ZDFneo and Netflix. It tells the story of Pip’s determination to solve a murder that happened in her hometown five years ago. She doesn't believe the person accused of it did it so she goes on a mission to uncover the truth. Along the way she encounters lots of twists, turns and secrets.

The cast also numbers one of the country’s leading actresses, Anna Maxwell Martin, star of Motherland and A Spy Among Friends, who plays Kamari’s screen mum, Leanne, and Gary Beadle, of Rye Lane and Small Axe fame, who plays his father Victor.